Tahira Clayton

Caili O'Doherty: Bluer Than Blue

by Pierre Giroux
May 12, 2025

Pianist and arranger Caili O'Doherty has carved out a niche as both an incisive interpreter of the jazz tradition and an innovator unafraid to reshape it. With Bluer Than Blue, she turns her keen musical intellect toward the underappreciated Lil Hardin Armstrong, a trailblazing composer, pianist, and bandleader whose influence has long lingered in the shadows of her more famous husband Louis Armstrong. O'Doherty doesn't merely recreate Hardin's music; she reimagines it for the 21st Century with bold harmonies, time ...