Music
Put Bill Charlap in that camp of brilliant jazz originals who have plied their trade by playing songs by other people and making them definitively their own.
Predictably, Chuck Prophet’s brand of rustic rock ’n’ roll gets a bit of a makeover by the members of the Cumbia band ¿Qiensave? But let me reassure you — this is another gem of a Prophet album.
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.
Concert Review: Yo-Yo Ma Elevates a Dispiriting Boston Symphony Orchestra Opening Night