Jon Garelick

Jazz Appreciation: Remembering George Wein (1925-2021)

September 17, 2021
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The sum total of George Wein’s career was a successful wedding of art and commerce.

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Jazz Commentary: Charlie Parker — The Eternal Radical at 100

August 30, 2020
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I’m still not sure I heard what’s revolutionary about Charlie Parker’s recordings — they’re very old news by now. But I warm to the expressions of unique genius, a beauty that in itself is radical.

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Visual Arts Commentary: Museums are Getting Woke for Real

February 25, 2020
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By digging deep into Thomas McKeller, the Gardner Museum has not only resurrected a lost figure (and lost music, and “lost” art) but revealed and contributed to an ongoing history.

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Music Review: The de-Stones’d New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 50th Anniversary

May 3, 2019
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“Forgiveness is the key and love is the answer… Have a good Jazz Fest, but also have a good life.”

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Concert Review: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

June 12, 2018
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The show had an undercurrent that brought to the fore all the issues that have put Wynton Marsalis at the center of the culture wars.

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Music Review: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2018

May 4, 2018
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Mostly the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ends up being about the multiplicity and infinite variety of cultures and traditions, including generic funk.

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Jazz Concert Review: The Bad Plus — Say again?

November 20, 2017
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You could sometimes be halfway into a Bad Plus show before hearing anything like a jazz chord from pianist Ethan Iverson.

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Jazz CD Review: Dominique Eade and Ran Blake’s Personal Vision of Americana on “Town and Country”

July 18, 2017
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The throughline of “Town and Country” is folk — austere, hardscrabble.

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Music Review: Singer/Songwriter Lucinda Williams — Americana Chanteuse

May 15, 2017
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The sense of place, the passage of time, the death-haunted imagery, and the coolly rhythmic verse gives Lucinda Williams’s songs their traction.

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Music Review: Notes from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

May 5, 2017
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The Fest’s music is mostly about audience participation — whether it’s dancing, sing-a-longs, or shouts of call-and-response.

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