Articles by C. Andrew Hovan
Bill Evans: Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings (Remastered 2025)
by C. Andrew Hovan
The past five years have been a banner period for recordings drawn from the vast canon of Bill Evans work, encompassing both previously issued material and newly discovered performances. Adding to the fact that one can easily hunt down previously issued expansive reissues of Evans' Riverside, Verve, and Fantasy catalogs, many unearthed tapes have finally seen the light of day through the efforts of Elemental Music and Resonance Records. And while it has been several decades since the JVC XRCD ...
Continue ReadingRay Barretto: Together
by C. Andrew Hovan
As of this writing, it has been more than 20 years since we lost the great conguero Ray Barretto. A native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, Barretto was among the first musicians to bring the conga drum into the standard jazz combo. His unmistakable touch can be heard throughout the early 1960s on a string of jazz classics by Lou Donaldson, Red Garland, Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Herbie Mann, and Jimmy Forrest. As the Latin music scene exploded in ...
Continue ReadingWes Montgomery: Boss Guitar
by C. Andrew Hovan
By the time Wes Montgomery left us in 1968 at just 45, he had already produced a staggering body of work. To say he changed the way musicians approached the guitar forever is no overstatement. Thanks to producer Orrin Keepnews, Montgomery documented his prime years on Riverside, recording nearly a dozen albums between 1959 and 1963. While some listeners discount his later efforts for Verve and A&M, the truth is that Montgomery never made a record that was not infused ...
Continue ReadingC. Andrew Hovan's Best Jazz Albums of 2025
by C. Andrew Hovan
On many levels, 2025 proved to be a challenging year marked by considerable strife. Fortunately, as Art Blakey once observed, “Music washes away the dust of everyday life." And yet, given the current state of affairs, the moment might be more accurately captured by a line from The Police: “When the world is falling down, you make the best of what's still around." Over the past decade, the trajectory of jazz has often been bent toward rule-breaking and linguistic expansion, ...
Continue ReadingA Muse Renaissance: Reissues from Roy Brooks, Kenny Barron, and Carlos Garnett
by C. Andrew Hovan
The independent jazz label has long served as a bellwether for the music's highest artistry, ever since the advent of the long-playing record. Labels such as Verve Records, Blue Note Records, Prestige Records, Contemporary Records, and Riverside--each a modest operation led by passionate entrepreneurs--were devoted to documenting the sound of their era with fidelity and purpose. As rock and other modern styles began to overshadow mainstream jazz in the early 1970s, producer Joe Fields emerged as a tireless advocate for ...
Continue ReadingA Savoy Revival: New OJCs from Hank Mobley & Yusef Lateef
by C. Andrew Hovan
Although the Concord Music Group acquired the legendary Savoy Records archives in 2017, the catalog has seen little reissue activity since. Founded in 1942 by Herman Lubinsky, Savoy earned distinction for documenting rhythm and blues, gospel, and jazz over several decades. The label captured many of bebop's pioneering voices--Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clarke, and Dizzy Gillespie, among them--on a series of landmark recordings. By the mid-1970s, Savoy endured a turbulent stretch of shifting distribution deals, first aligning ...
Continue ReadingMelvin Rhyne: Tomorrow Yesterday Today
by C. Andrew Hovan
A disciple of some of the earliest jazz organ practitioners, such as Jackie Davis, Milt Buckner, and Wild Bill Davis, jazz veteran Melvin Rhyne's major claim to fame has been the five years he spent with the renowned Wes Montgomery in the early '60s. Yet this is really only a fraction of the story for the 67-year-old organist. Much like the proverbial hibernating bear, Rhyne kept a low profile throughout the '70s and '80s and he even told writer Pete ...
Continue ReadingKenny Drew: Kenny Drew Trio
by C. Andrew Hovan
One of many American jazz musicians who made Europe home beginning in the early 1960s, pianist Kenny Drew is best remembered as the pianist on John Coltrane's seminal Blue Train--when he is remembered at all. Over the course of his career, Drew forged notable associations with Dexter Gordon and Jackie McLean, and recorded nearly 50 albums as a leader, most prominently Undercurrent (Blue Note, 1961) and Dark Beauty (SteepleChase, 1974). Passing away at the relatively young age of sixty-four, one ...
Continue ReadingPrestige Rara Avis: Kenny Burrell and Frank Wess
by C. Andrew Hovan
Over the past decade, music lovers and jazz collectors have enjoyed a wealth of opportunities thanks to the ongoing vinyl renaissance. Back in the 1980s and '90s, Fantasy Records became a favorite among enthusiasts with its Original Jazz Classics series, reissuing nearly a thousand titles from its vast catalog, which included Prestige, Riverside, and Contemporary. After going dormant for a time following Concord's acquisition of the vaults, Craft Recordings revived the OJC imprint in 2023 with a slate of meticulously ...
Continue Reading46th Annual Tri-C JazzFest
by C. Andrew Hovan
46th Annual Tri-C JazzFest Playhouse Square Cleveland, OH June 26-28, 2025 Jazz festivals occupy a precarious space these days. Pressured by financial constraints, too many have drifted toward booking artists with only a passing connection to the jazz tradition. Cuts to both public and private funding have only compounded the difficulty of producing large-scale music festivals. This year's Tri-C JazzFest wasn't immune to those realities. Several of its outdoor performances veered into genres ...
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