Even though I was never a big fan, I was saddened to hear of the death of extraordinary musician and person Jeff Healy. I do not want to sound dismissive of musical ability, but flashy blues oriented guitar playing has never been my cup of tea – and this is what seems to have initially made Healy famous. However, it wasn’t until I listened to his CBC radio show, My Kind of Jazz, that I first got an understanding of Jeff Healy that went beyond his blues/rock persona. With something like 30,000 vinyl records in his collection, Healy had a knowledge of early and traditional jazz that spoke to both his ability as a musician and appreciator of music. His wish to share the music he loved with a wider audience suggests a generosity of spirit in keeping with his musical talents. So it is with equal parts sadness and admiration that I dedicate this week’s installment to Jeff Healy.

Although not recorded in the early part of the 20th century, “Floater (Too Much to Ask)” by Bob Dylan and found on 2001’s “Love and Theft,” very well could have been. Seemingly recalling New Orleans and Dixieland jazz and blues from the 1930’s – prominent in Healy’s radio show – “Floater” is mostly a mid-tempo stroll over lightly played and mostly acoustic backing instruments – including an indolent sounding violin.

With the lazy quality of the music ambling along like a happy drunk and furnished with Dylan’s typical mixture of evocative imagery and astute commentary, “Floater” seems to place the listener in some idealistic reckoning of the southern United States. When Dylan sings, “I keep listening for footsteps/but I ain’t never hearing any/from the boat, I fish for bullheads/I catch a lot, sometimes too many,” it’s as if the listener can expect to arrive, Huckleberry Finn-like, on the banks of the Mississippi River at a garden party complete with white-suited plantation owners sipping mint juleps and smoking cigars.

“Floater” does not explicitly mention a specific geography or time, but the music does seem to place it in a romanticized past and place. But more than using music to create an atmosphere, indeed to recall a vanished time, Bob Dylan – as well as Jeff Healy when he was alive – is bringing back into the world forms of music that might otherwise go unnoticed and unappreciated by a larger audience.