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When I’m reviewing music for The New York Times , my first goal is always to understand an artist 's intentions: What are they trying to convey, or to call into question, with this work? Only after I’ve grasped that can I start to gauge how successfully they’ve pulled it off.

Music criticism is ultimately a process guided by empathy — and by what the critic David Thomson called “that common but extraordinary thing, noticing.” You’ve got to figure out how an artist sees the world; this, in turn, becomes a way to expand your own way of seeing it.

When I review music that’s just been created, you might say I am critiquing from eye-level: The world the performer is speaking to is the one I’m living in, too. But when the assignment is to review music that was recorded decades ago — which I did twice this month, with the release of never-before-heard albums by Miles Davis and John Coltrane — I get to do some time traveling.