Articles

Listeners' Favorites

By Marc Cohn

It's that time, times two. A show with a number 5 at the end. So here's a slug of recent listener favorites from Gifts and Messages shows 391 to 400. As always, we had too much music to deal with and that's a good thing. So, my selections from your favorites try to achieve some variety and balance. We've got some 21st century sounds, as well as blasts from the past. Enjoy the show. Next week the Christmas Gifts and ...

Jazzmeia Horn: Love & Liberation

By Ian Patterson

It's a big step for any singer, the move from interpreter of jazz standards to songwriter. And when you've been Grammy-nominated for a debut album of covers, as Jazzmeia Horn was with A Social Call (Prestige, 2017), the temptation must be to carry on in the same vein. Horn, however, clearly has greater ambition, as the eight originals on her follow-up attest. Not that she's thrown the baby out with the bathwater, for swing, blues, bebop, gospel and thrilling vocal ...

Newport Jazz Festival 2018: Part 2-2

By Timothy J. O'Keefe

Part 1 | Part 2 Newport Jazz Festival Fort Adams State Park Newport, RI August 5, 2018 From the first spongy thwack that bounced off the conga drum, a sticky humidity clung about Narragansett peninsula while the sounds of Herlin Riley's New York Havana Connection oozed from the stage. The set featured numerous pieces from New Directions (Mack Avenue Records, 2016), and saw varying tempo changes and multi-rhythmic cycles spark the synergy ...

Jazzmeia Horn Live at BIMHUIS Amsterdam

By BIMHUIS

There is great anticipation surrounding Jazzmeia Horn. She has already been compared to Betty Carter and Sarah Vaughan, and she received compliments from Jon Hendricks and Al Jarreau. Her singing and vocalese skills are of the highest level, and on top of that she does not shy away from addressing current social issues. On her recent album A Social Call she displays a wide array of influences, from role models such as Mary J. Blige and Sister Rosetta ...

Friehofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival 2018

By R.J. DeLuke

Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival Saratoga Performing Arts Center Saratoga Springs, NY June 23-24, 2018 Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival rolled into its the start of its fifth decade with a fresh format and plenty of fresh faces. The festival plays out each year during an amazing two days in the great Saratoga Performing Arts Center venue amid the natural beauty of Saratoga State Park and, though tainted by rain at various points, the ...

The Jazzmeia Horn 5tet at Cooper Hewitt Museum

By Adrien H. Tillmann

Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival 2017

By C. Andrew Hovan

The complicated logistics and sizable costs associated with free jazz festivals have made them somewhat rarified these days. By its all-encompassing scope and scale, the Detroit Jazz Festival has served as a model for many decades now. But if you want something a bit earthier and intimate, there's really no equal for the atmosphere that envelops the Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival. Now in its seventh year, this budding diamond in the rough gets its energy from the community that serves ...