Jon Garelick
The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer eludes easy categorization, but Henry Threadgill’s new memoir — and his latest recording — take a step in defining his singular artistic personality.
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Terri Lyne Carrington, on her home turf (she’s a native Bostonian and holds several positions at Berklee, including being founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice), augmented her six-piece band with three guests.
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Jason Moran, as virtuoso pianist and bandleader, enacted all of jazz history at the keyboard, from ragtime to no time, as the saying goes.
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To hear free music so beautifully contained and expressed in such inventive forms isn’t unheard of (Henry Threadgill? Vijay Iyer? Wadada Leo Smith?). But bassist Michael Formanek has his own way.
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Such a beautiful evening of music — two relatively concise sets, one an hour long, another a little less — adding up to an integral whole.
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We’d returned to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. We’d ridden a paddle-wheeler on the Mississippi River. It was good to be back, and why we’ll go back every chance we get: to life.
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Solo performance is still a way ahead for jazz pianists, judging from four CDs released in 2021.
The sum total of George Wein’s career was a successful wedding of art and commerce.
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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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Culture Commentary: World War II Was a Race War, and It Isn’t Over
It isn’t exactly news that the genocide of Native Americans was a model for Hitler, but it hit with fresh force in The U.S. and the Holocaust.
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