Life and Jazz are effortlessly analogous. The dynamism of improvisation, the integration of influences, the rewards of risk, the capricious syncopation. Life is often better lived behind the beat, but sometimes you find yourself ahead in the measure. Polyrhythms play off of each other to create the concert of our existence and at the times there is harmony, others dissonance...but always there is an end.

My friend Marc Lundberg passed suddenly while I was in New Orleans for my first Mardi Gras. Marc was a N.O. native and champion with a magnetic personality and buoyant heart. He was loved by many and left too soon. This show is dedicated to him along with my dear friend Ayo Scott, who was gracious enough to introduce me to Marc and into their family.

No sad music here. Nope. Celebrate and second line as this plays people, lawd knows I did. Love to N.O., I'll be back sooner than later.

Another one bites the dust. 2012 is but an annotation in the ledger and 2013 grabs a seat at the table of transformation.

This time of year always foments a desire for regeneration. I suppose it's part of our make up. We walk around shedding dead skin cells daily, oblivious to the decay we leave in our wake. But testament to our durability, we unconsciously recreate ourselves as a function of life. Wounds heal. Shorn hair encroaches upon our shoulders. Fingernails which were the victim of stress push pass the cuticle. You're either growing or dying, ya dig?

Last year seemed rife with so much madness I wanted to put together something to counteract that dissonant energy in the air. No musical thread other than music that makes ya feel deeply. Throw some more coal in the boiler and enjoy.

We tend to discount our ability to levitate as human beings. One need not be a magician to experience the thrill that comes with separation from the oppression of gravity, merely an opportunist. Two things have particular importance in my personal pursuit of transcendence: roller coasters and music. Both demand two things to fully enjoy their bounty: surrender and trust. For the roller coaster, you must surrender to the designs of a mechanical juggernaut and trust that it won't kill your ass in the process. In the case of music, you must surrender to the mood and the melody, trusting them to transport you someplace more whatever you need in that moment, even if it drops you back off where you began.

Music is a tonic for the tethered. It unravels the coils of emotion and reveals the air beneath your feet. Time spent in the arms of a good song should fill you with the rarified air a kite feels when it breaks free on a breezy day.

This mix is a huckabuck hodge podge of goodies meant to get you through these obsequious holidays of consumption. Press play and float on.

I've always found ego repellant. Humility rooted in integrity is much sexier.

This belief system often lends me to acquiesce to my excellence. I'd much rather show you than tell you.

But sometimes, you gotta do like my mother always told me: put on your pink skirt, raise it high and tell people to kiss your natural born ass.

This mix is dedicated to the under-appreciated. Those quietly working at refining their craft and selves without the accessory of bravado. The uncompromising crew that knows happiness is in the pursuing. Don't get bored with what your doin. The pleasure principle is the ruin. Take no shorts and dig in.

Our bodies are the ultimate sci-fi adventures; minus the fiction, of course. Whole universes housed beneath a few dozen feet of derma moving across the space continuum of existence. Constellations of follicles dancing along side the orbit of aeronautical appendages. Endochromatic gravity regulating a complex and hostile terrain. Alien organisms waging epic battles against the army of our immunity. Yet, all of it can be consumed when we encounter the black hole of the soul. Amazing things, these bodies we comprise.

There has been a clarity in the city sky which I cannot easily recall from days past. Between light pollution and good ole fashioned pollution, I'm accustomed to the night consisting mainly of a defiant moon, flashing lights moving along the surface of the night's plane and an occasional North Star. But as of late, the sky has been alive with light coming from far beyond. Deep within the recesses of our understanding, these beams push forward to remind us of our infinitesimal existence; the stars and I are kindred. In spirit and matter. And just like those stars, one day my light will fade and convert into some other form. But for now, I intend to be the brightest I can be.

This mix is soulful and fueled by the fire of growth. May it help you go boldly into the vast unknown. Mazel tov.

Boundaries are duplicitous little fuckers; they can both augment and diminish. It is not uncommon to envy the freedom of an uncaged bird. Their sovereign wings are an elegy to the beauty of abandoning the familiar to find a perch with a different, perhaps more inspired, vantage point. However, there are times where limitations are the most essential of components. The hardest lesson to learn can be when to set healthy boundaries; with our loved ones, in our workplace, even with ourselves. In this thing called life, you gotta straddle the fence.

I've been perfecting my balance on that line between reckless uninhibitedness and pragmatic restraint. A tightrope affair if ever there was one, but there in lies the thrill. Life will test your resolve. Study yourself so you may have an answer at the ready within.

This mix finds me in boho mode. Break out your Birkinstocks and fire one up. Enjoy, mon frères.

Where is inspiration born? Is it an immaculate conception carved out in the back seat of a lonely Buick that fills the virginal void of apathy and allows imagination to procreate? Or is it a communal mind fuck where we all must divine our most erogenous role in the orgy of inventiveness?

It's no coincidence, I suppose, I'm processing the concept of birth in the wake of death I've been experiencing as of late. The cycle of life presents us with such a spectrum of questions and scarce time to uncover their answers. Each moment gives us new life, a "rebirth" if you will, and like children we must be amiable enough to read the meaning of the footprints that populate the ground around us. The inertia of life can pull you into the realm of bitterness and fear. Rely on this moment to give you a new portal to explore your domain; a new canal from which you can be born again. (no christian-o)

This show skews towards rock but is peppered with a helping of soul. Hope yall enjoy. Dedicating this one to my grandmother, who raised hell till the moment she checked out of here, and I love her for it.

I can recall being very young learning about Phantom Limb Syndrome. Like many African-American families, diabetes is ever present in our blood line and my grandmother lost both of her legs as a result of it. Her stemless body was often stricken with painful flashes of legs that used to lance a path in the ground so deep the trees gave way to her approach. The sensation of what was lost can be more piercing than a knife.

Life manifests this syndrome in less somatic ways, and we often find ourselves feeling for something lost along this unscripted path of existence. The spirit's muscles remember what it feels like to be free. We become married to the feeling of what we allowed to be.

Somewhere along the way, we try to unlearn the urge to grasp and instead let go to the wind. Forgiveness flows in the gulf stream of release if you can set your sail on that path.

All esoteric bullshit to say: forgive yourself. Nobody gave you an instruction manual. You did the best you could at the time. Now, move on. I'm reminding myself of this everyday.

I made this mix on a Monday, so I put something together to arm for my spirit for the week ahead. I hope it does the same for you. Soulful goodness.

get the free download of Manuals' single "MPG" at www.manuals.bandcamp.com

It has always struck me as peculiar people's apprehension towards talking about poop. I mean, I can appreciate the unsavory bits of the experience; noxious odors, painful cramps, e. coli, etc., ect...it's far from fine art. But it is also a big part of the human experience that we all (baring a colostomy bag) must navigate with as much dignity as possible. It unifies us in our collective necessity & shame: this most private moment is where we find a weird intersection. Our bowels all empty in this ravine of earth and mingle with each other; our waste shares a common language. Indeed, shitting is one of the things that makes life worth living. Ask anybody currently constipated.

Digestion is also an essential part of our engine. Converting minerals into energy and removing the remains of this transformation is a miracle of divine understanding, and we'd do well to remember that.

This mix is a gumbo of good music, blending some classic soul with some new offerings & ending on some hip-hop shit. See. Shit is even an essential part of a healthy vernacular. May this music move you like collard greens to the toilet. Flush on.

I marvel at Nature's ability to endure. Chicago has suffered one of its most egregious winters in a long time, yet merely days after the temp cracked 40 there were flowers digging themselves up from the soil outside my home; green, vibrant-alive.

We humans have a tendency to detach ourselves from nature. We think we somehow exist beyond the rhythms the universe has cultivated over the millennia. But we would do well to learn from our horticultural kin. Despite being buried beneath feet of snow, they allow themselves the chance to be dormant & make space for the bounty that is their summer. I can follow the logic.

Spring is upon us good people, so let's get our houses in order so we can go outside and play. This mix is straight jazz, no chaser. It should be the perfect compliment to a day of cleaning-physical, metaphysical or otherwise-and get you in a good head space for the task at hand. Don't skimp on the Pledge.

Shouts to my good buddy down in Nawlins Ayo Scott for letting me use his art work as the photo for this episode. Quite talented, eh? Check him & his company NOYO Designs out at www.noyodesigns.com.