Music
Volume 1 in a new series from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and John Wilson whets the appetite for more music by the late-19th-century American composer Edward MacDowell.
Bottom line: “Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 2023” captures the manic, mercurial energy that transformed the man born James Osterberg into the legend that is Iggy Pop.
“There are no weak spots; I feel happy and confident with how every song came out.”
The keyboard wizard’s latest album both continues a trend of expansive projects that take the long view and celebrates the decade-plus the virtuoso has resided in the United States. It is a blast.
“PoemJazz” is a project where music and poetry reinforce each other, where the declaimed poetry works like the sung line of a song — though Robert Pinsky never sings or pretends to.
Another excellent recording from the “Rossini in Wildbad” festival, with spellbinding vocal performances by Congolese tenor Patrick Kabongo and other powerful young singers.
For many years now, we’ve collected brief lists of important jazz figures who passed in the previous year.
The creative force behind jazz is so strong and so universal that the music will continue to sustain us through whatever perils and calamities the upper echelons of business and politics land us in.
There is a lot of extraordinary jazz out there that few of us are noticing, myself included.
The 19th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll: Now and Then and Then and Now — A Top Ten List From Its Namesake
Here’s my Top 10 presented with the understanding that I didn’t hear as many albums as in other years, or concentrate on those I did hear and enjoy as if I had nothing else on my mind.
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