Jazz

Jazz Album Review: Dizzy Gillespie’s “Soul & Salvation” — The Spirit Is Cheesy But Willing

May 17, 2024
Posted in , , ,

“Soul & Salvation” is a short album, and you’ll be sorry when it’s over. It’s hardly an essential album in Dizzy Gillespie’s long discography, but you won’t regret giving it a listen.

Read More

Arts Investigation: Mortality and Jazz Artists – Do We Honor the Dead?

May 15, 2024
Posted in , ,

How well or how poorly are we paying homage to our jazz ancestors? Some graves are worthy places of pilgrimage. Others are neglected . . . or unknown.

Read More

Jazz Album Review: Kenny Barron’s “Beyond This Place” – As Enthralling as Ever

May 15, 2024
Posted in , , ,

The spirited restraint of the pianist’s playing — its omnipresent precision and clarity — sounds contemporary and fresh.

Read More

Book Review: “The Jazzmen” — Three Private and Public Lives, Intertwined

May 12, 2024
Posted in , , ,

In this book, readers are given a full taste of the lives of three complicated musical artists.

Read More

Jazz Feature: Saxophonist Gregory Groover Jr. — At the Intersection of Spirituals and Jazz

May 7, 2024
Posted in , , ,

Saxophonist Gregory Groover Jr, was not initially drawn to spirituals. In fact, as a young person, he found them frightening.

Read More

Book Review: “At the Vanguard of Vinyl” — Illuminating and Frustrating

April 28, 2024
Posted in , , , ,

Other readers may be more sympathetic to this informative book’s broader conclusions about the rise of LP’s and the “erasure of black bodies and black aesthetics.

Read More

Jazz Perspective: Zev Feldman – A Sherlock of a Producer with an Impressive Portfolio

April 26, 2024
Posted in , , ,

Zev Feldman is becoming one of the great sleuth-producers of our time, and his name is becoming a marker of quality.

Read More

Gospel Album Review: Sister Rosetta Tharpe — A “Solid Sender”

April 26, 2024
Posted in , , ,

I admire Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s wit and daring, her singularly effective guitar playing, and the subtlety of her singing.

Read More

Jazz Album Reviews: New Sets of Previously Unreleased Music — Art Tatum, Yusef Lateef, and Others

April 23, 2024
Posted in , , ,

These four sets are among five new collections of previously-unreleased music that provide crisp snapshots of renowned jazz performers in the second half of the twentieth century and precious documents of great originals in their prime.

Read More

Jazz Album Review: Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon — “The Lost Album”

April 20, 2024
Posted in , , ,

The music works. The session is among old friends. The rhythm section cooks and every solo holds one’s attention.

Read More

Recent Posts