Music
A gripping autobiography and beautiful new solo CD from a master jazz pianist — Fred Hersch.
An early highlight of the upcoming Leonard Bernstein centennial is Sony Classical’s 25-disc box set.
There was an entire “New York School” that the punks were inspired by and a part of, whether they always wanted to be or not.
Michael Tilson Thomas proves he’s got Alban Berg’s style in his blood; Pablo Heras-Casado’s Mendelssohn symphony cycle continues to be stylish.
If you want to know how exquisitely intuition and structure can be balanced, you could hardly do better than to hear these two new discs.
Sit Fast’s performances are breathtaking for their clarity and emotional involvement; Vladimir Jurowski serves up a ho-hum, un-monumental an interpretation of a late-Romantic pillar.
John Abercrombie, one of the great improvisers, died on August 22, after a long illness.
Matt Wilson’s album includes both beautifully performed musical settings and readings of Carl Sandburg poems.
John Beasley and his big band doesn’t tame Monk or make him uncharacteristically pretty.
The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year: Warming Up a Riff — How It Happened, and Why It Matters