Jazz Articles about Joey DeFrancesco

About Joey DeFrancesco

Album Review

Joey DeFrancesco: Live at Keystone Korner

Read "Live at Keystone Korner" reviewed by Andrew Schinder

by Andrew Schinder
October 5, 2026

Joey DeFrancesco is one of the most tragic stories of 21st-century jazz. After the deaths of mid-twentieth-century organ greats Jimmy Smith and Larry Young, the Hammond B-3 became somewhat unfashionable until DeFrancesco's dynamic, virtuosic style helped reignite the jazz community's passion for the instrument. DeFrancesco was prolific and engaging and the perfect ambassador for the organ, until a sudden heart attack tragically cut short his life at age 51, while he was still in the prime of his career. A ...

Album Review

Didier Lockwood: Storyboard (Vinyl Reissue)

Read "Storyboard (Vinyl Reissue)" reviewed by Artur Moral

by Artur Moral
April 23, 2026

You might sometimes wonder about the usefulness of reissues--and all the more so in these times when many past gems, though physically unobtainable, are just a click away on the various content platforms. Setting aside die-hard audiophiles, tactile purists and compulsive completists, the truth is that these new pressings represent a golden opportunity for those unfamiliar with the original albums to discover them in all their voluptuous vintage tangibility. And for those who have already savored them, there is that ...

Album Review

Summer Camargo: To Whom I Love

Read "To Whom I Love" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
March 15, 2024

Trumpet artist Summer Camargo startled the music and entertainment worlds when, as a brilliant 22-year-old Juilliard grad, she landed the highly-desired trumpet chair in the Saturday Night Live band. Camargo now adds to her lengthy list of achievements with her debut album, To Whom I Love. She and a cadre of New York all-stars deliver nine varied tracks (seven Camargo originals and two jazz workhorses) on which she and her colleagues shine. “JP Shuffle," upbeat and catchy, ...

Album Review

George Freeman: The Good Life

Read "The Good Life" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 16, 2023

For guitarist George Freeman, The Good Life has also been a long life. He was a nimble-fingered ninety-five-year-old plectrist when this splendid album was recorded in May and June 2022, which makes it all the more grievous to know it would be organ maestro Joey DeFrancesco's last recording date; he died of a heart attack some three months later at the relatively young age of fifty-one. Freeman leads two trios here, the first with DeFrancesco on organ ...

Radio & Podcasts

Joey DeFrancesco, Jaimie Branch & Natalia M. King

by Joe Dimino
September 11, 2022

We start the 768th Episode of Neon Jazz with the explosive jazz and blues singer Natalia M. King. She was born in Brooklyn and came into her own in France. She is a force and following her, we dig into another musician that left the states for France in Sidney Bechet. There is a new trove of good modern music from Carole Nelson, Oscar Peñas and Billy Drummond. Last week was a tough one for the world of jazz as ...

Radio & Podcasts

Celebrating Monnette Sudler, Jaimie Branch, Joey DeFrancesco & Creed Taylor

by David Brown
August 30, 2022

A difficult week for the music. Celebrating guitarist Monnette Sudler, producer Creed Taylor, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, and organist Joey DeFrancesco all of whom we lost this week. Plus, birthday tributes to Lester Young, Sonny Sharrock, Alice Coltrane and more. h3>Playlist Thelonious Monk “Esistrophy (Theme)" from Live at the It Club-Complete (Columbia) 00:30 Lester Young with Count Basie and His Orchestra “Boogie Woogie" from The President Meets the Count (Epic ) 02:30 Monnette Sudler Quartet/Quintet “Let Us Love" from ...

Interview

My Conversation with Joey DeFrancesco

by AAJ Staff
August 26, 2022

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in February 2000. Whatever can be said of Joey De Francesco, there is no denying his impact on his fans, many of whom lined up for hours at a local hole in the wall in my hometown of Fullerton to see the organ player on a Friday night. So for the benefit of those fans, I present unto you, the primetime organist of his generation, unedited ...