Rick Moody has been writing about music as long as he has been writing, and DISCREET MUSIC provides an ample selection from that effort. His anatomy of the word "cool" reminds us that, in the postwar 40s, it was infused with the feeling of jazz music but is now merely a synonym for neat, "a grunt of assent." "On Celestial Music," which was included in Best American Essays, 2008, begins with a lament for the loss in current music of the vulnerability expressed by Otis Redding's masterpiece, "Try a Little Tenderness;" moves on to Moody's infatuation with the ecstatic music of the Velvet Underground; and ends with an appreciation of Arvo Part and Purcell, close as they are to nature, praise, "the music of the spheres." Modern groups covered include "Magnetic Fields" (their love songs), "Wilco"(the band's and Jeff Tweedy's evolution), "Danielson Famile" (an evangelical rock band), "The Pogues" (Shane McGowan's problems with addiction), "The Lounge Lizards" (John Lurie's brilliance), and Meredith Monk, who once recorded a song inspired by Rick Moody's story "Boys." Always both incisive and personable, these pieces give us the inspiration to dive as deeply into the music that enhances our lives as Moody has done--and introduces us to wonderful sounds we may not know.