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Featured Jazz Articles
Coleman Hawkins: Fifty Years Gone, A Saxophone Across Time
Fifty years ago this past year, Coleman Hawkins, considered the father of tenor saxophone in jazz, passed away. Thelonious Monk was pacing back and forth in the hallway outside Hawkins' hospital room when the saxophonist succumbed at age 64 on the morning of May 19, 1969, from pneumonia and other complications. Monk was holding a short stack of albums that Hawkins had gifted him just before being hospitalized. With Monk was the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, attendant to ...
read moreAlan Pasqua: Keys That Unlock Many Doors
Recently, and just a few days before Thanksgiving (2019), I was thankful for the opportunity to have two separate conversations with renown pianist Alan Pasqua. As generous with his time and candid commentary as he is talented as a musician and composer, both conversations crashed the one-hour mark. For you non mathematicians, that is over two hours of discussing, recounting, and engaging into a wide range of topics. With that in mind I will keep this intro brief ...
read moreJazz Societies, Part I: The Skipp Pearson Jazz Legacy Foundation
The oral history traditions of West African griots led the preservation and interpretation of music that would become the fundamentals of jazz. In previous Under the Radar columns we looked at institutions that further the cause of safeguarding the genre; university-level academic programs and jazz museums whose hands-on experiences, community outreach, teaching and sharing of history, are helping to keep jazz relevant. In the decentralized, smaller, and culturally diverse world of jazz societies, the dissemination of jazz history is often ...
read morePanagiotis Andreou: The World In A Bass
My first encounter with Panagiotis Andreou was while covering a bass workshop that included him along with the likes of Richard Bona (Zawinul Syndicate, Mike Stern), Michael League (Snarky Puppy), Dwayne “Mono Neon" Thomas (Prince, Ghost Note) and Wes Stephenson (The Funky Knuckles). All of these players seemed humbled by each other's presence during the opening conversational part of the workshop. Even if they didn't know all of the names, those in attendance understood why. This group represented a unique ...
read moreChucho Valdes with Special Guest Chick Corea at Jazz at Lincoln Center
Chucho Valdes with Special Guest Chick Corea Jazz at Lincoln Center The Rose Theater New York, NY November 16, 2019 Jazz at Lincoln Center, in the Rose Theater, witnessed a very special meeting which occurred on-stage between two legendary jazz pianists, Chucho Valdés and Chick Corea. Both musically prolific, and having won more than 30 Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards combined while redefining modern music in the process. Chucho Valdés hugged and shook ...
read moreVilnius Jazz 2019
Vilnius Jazz 2019 Russian Drama Theatre jny:Vilnius, Lithuania October 16-20, 2019 Is a jazz festival primarily about entertainment, or is it meant to challenge the expectations of its audience? Does programming risk mean financial suicide? What responsibility does a festival have to promote young, emerging talent? What place do women have in jazz today? How does jazz benefit from collaborations with other art forms? Does jazz carry a diplomatic passport, or should its practitioners ...
read moreDavid Sanborn: The Curtain Rises on Sanborn Sessions
Listed alphabetically, as opposed to first, second, and third place, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, and David Sanborn are as good as it gets when discussing the best and most influential alto saxophone players of all-time. Now before you say what about Phil Woods or Kenny Garrett or any number of others, let me qualify that this is my list, my opinion. Not some carved in stone official list that has been sealed and notarized by some sort of imaginary Grand ...
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