Allen Michie
April Varner, a rising star in this new generation of female jazz singers—which happily seems full of them—pays homage to Ella Fitzgerald; John Pizzarelli’s recording is an early entry in the no-doubt long list of tributes celebrating Bennett’s 100th birthday.
“Evolution” is a major statement from master musicians building on a strong tradition and taking it forward into our own generation with passion and elegance.
Composer and bandleader Maria Schneider is a storyteller, and that’s the best way to approach her music for the first time. You listen like you read a short story, with your full attention, and your imagination synced with all of your senses.
Two debut big band albums, one traditional and one progressive, are blowing in hot in the dead of winter.
Add these four remastered Ray Charles albums to your collection and remind yourself what the real thing sounds like when it finally comes along.
This is poetry that sets its goals, finds the right language to reach them, hits hard, and recovers an ancient purpose for verse that has fallen by the wayside in recent times: consolation.
Ideally, if the verse and the music work seamlessly together, they can create a third kind of art that is neither fish nor fowl. It can stand alone on its own merits.
If any of these songs get some airplay and serve as gateway drugs to the glories of the Count Basie band, I’m all for it.
On two recent releases, trumpeter Paolo Fresu shows us exactly what he has learned from Miles Davis, and how that has expanded rather than limited his music.
Everyone who loves jazz, or makes a living somewhere in its world, owes a debt to many of the hard-working and under-paid writers of the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA).
Music Commentary: Brian Wilson’s Legacy Thrives — 2026 Reissues Reviewed