Solo performance is still a way ahead for jazz pianists, judging from four CDs released in 2021.
Jazz Appreciation: Remembering George Wein (1925-2021)
The sum total of George Wein’s career was a successful wedding of art and commerce.
Jazz Commentary: Charlie Parker — The Eternal Radical at 100
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.
Visual Arts Commentary: Museums are Getting Woke for Real
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.
Music Review: The de-Stones’d New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 50th Anniversary
“Forgiveness is the key and love is the answer… Have a good Jazz Fest, but also have a good life.”
Concert Review: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
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.
Music Review: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2018
Mostly the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ends up being about the multiplicity and infinite variety of cultures and traditions, including generic funk.
Jazz Concert Review: The Bad Plus — Say again?
You could sometimes be halfway into a Bad Plus show before hearing anything like a jazz chord from pianist Ethan Iverson.
Jazz CD Review: Dominique Eade and Ran Blake’s Personal Vision of Americana on “Town and Country”
The throughline of “Town and Country” is folk — austere, hardscrabble.
Music Review: Singer/Songwriter Lucinda Williams — Americana Chanteuse
The sense of place, the passage of time, the death-haunted imagery, and the coolly rhythmic verse gives Lucinda Williams’s songs their traction.