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The Black Entrepreneurs of Early Jazz
Preamble: In 2020, I published A Map of Jazz: Crossroads of Music and Human Rights (WS Publishing), a book that looks at the culture of jazz on a timeline with cultures of the world. At more than 500 pages, the book is incomplete by necessity; there is no well-marked path, and the history is sometimes nebulous. However, as a map of events and the chronology of jazz music, it leads to unfamiliar places. The series Backstories dives deeper into people ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Paquito D’Rivera Quintet at Miner Auditorium
Paquito D'Rivera Quintet Miner Auditorium San Francisco, CA September 26, 2025 On Friday night at SFJAZZ's Miner Auditorium, Paquito D'Rivera walked out smiling, a clarinet at his side and seven decades of stagecraft in his pocket. The Cuban-born NEA Jazz Master had long argued that the hallway between the conservatory and the clavé was not a border but a corridor of constant traffic. With his longrunning quintet--Alex Brown (piano), Oscar Stagnaro (six-string electric bass), ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Annapolis Jazz & Roots Festival Returns In November 2025
The Chesapeake Bay and an historic city nestled along its shores form the perfect back drop for the Annapolis Jazz & Roots Festival held weekends November 7-16. Now in its fourth year, the musical feast was founded in the maritime neighborhood of Eastport. In 2025, the festival extends to surrounding areas and includes eight venues. Most events are free; two require admission. Reservations are strongly advised for all events. This year’s theme is “World Travelers & Hometown Heroes." Events celebrate ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra Pays Tribute To A Jazz Great In 'Dreamkeeper: Music Of Carla Bley' On Thursday, October 16
The NEC Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Ken Schaphorst, presents Dreamkeeper: Music of Carla Bley on Thursday, October 16. The concert features music composed and arranged by Bley, including “Awful Coffee,” “Greasy Gravy,” “On the Stage in Stages,” and “Jesus Maria.” The 7:30 p.m. concert takes place in Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston. Admission is free but tickets are required. Information at necmusic.edu. The iconoclastic pianist, composer and arranger Carla Bley was a visionary whose works are revered ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Children of the Light: Forging New Footprints
"The trio is a real laboratory for colours, voices, and ways of playing interactions," says the Panamanian-born jazz pianist Danilo Pérez. With bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, Pérez has forged a bond over two decades in Wayne Shorter's last and yet groundbreaking Footprints Quartet. After Shorter withdrew from the public eye, the three sidemen continued to explore cosmic and existential themes. They nod to Shorter's mentorship and named their trio as “Children of the Light"--a twist on Shorter's ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Iron Blossom Festival 2025: Jazzy Enough?
Iron Blossom Festival Midtown Green Richmond, VA September 20-21, 2025 A quick look at Richmond's relatively new Iron Blossom Festival lineup might give some jazz fans pause. With headliners like Vampire Weekend and The Lumineers, the festival looks to be serving up more indie pop-rock selections for younger audiences to consume. Such hasty or dismissive judgment might serve jazz purists just fine, but for those listeners looking for more fusion, sonic flavors and blends, the ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Eddie Durham: The Jazz Innovator a City Refuses to Forget
Eddie Durham's LegacyFew names in jazz carry the quiet weight of Eddie Durham. Born in San Marcos, Texas, in 1906, Durham was a trombonist, guitarist, composer, and arranger whose fingerprints are all over the sound of swing. He was a pioneering electric guitarist--the first to record with the instrument--and a key arranger for Bennie Moten, Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller. Durham helped shape the Count Basie Orchestra's small-group feel, expanded orchestral voicings in ways that gave the band ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
LateNights With Brad Schrader - Bringing Back Cocktails, Cole Porter And Classy Evenings!
Album LateNights I make it my goal to carry the torch of the American Songbook to a new and younger audience, to keep this great music alive among us. For LateNights we wanted to bring an easy, night-out-with-a-cocktail vibe to our listeners—something we try to bring to our live shows. We bring a cross-section of standards—and not-so-standards—with fresh arrangements to make things easy and interesting. Our superb band of jazz veterans builds a chill groove under and around the vocals, ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Reykjavik Jazz Festival 2025
Reykjavik Jazz Festival Harpa Concert Hall Reykjavik, IcelandAugust 26-31, 2025 Jazz festivals are rarely just stages and instruments. They are living, breathing ecosystems, a careful weaving together of artists, ideas, and audiences. Each performer brings a unique expression, and each set is curated with an ear for the festival's identity. Financial constraints may exist, but thoughtful curation is what gives a festival its soul. The Reykjavik Jazz Festival is no exception: it's a mosaic of ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Announcing Smoke Jazz Club's Line-up Of Shows In November 2025 Including The Billy Hart Quartet’s New Album Celebration, Pianists Joey Alexander And Bill Charlap, And More
Hailed as the “#1 Jazz Club in New York City (SecretNYC),” SMOKE Jazz Club today announced its concert schedule for November 2025. The NEA Jazz Master Billy Hart celebrates his Quartet’s first live recording Multidirectional in a three-night album release celebration during Thanksgiving weekend. Across consecutive weeks, SMOKE presents two highly regarded pianists spanning the spectrum from rising voices to time-honored masters: the precocious 22-year-old Joey Alexander followed by veteran Bill Charlap. Other highlights this month include the return of ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Aaron Parks Little Big in Hong Kong
Aaron Parks Little Big Jazz in the Neighbourhood Tsuen Wan Town Hall, Hong Kong September 22, 2025 A charged, expectant energy filled the room in the moments before Aaron Parks took to the stage. A few hours before the American pianist's debut Hong Kong appearance as leader, it was announced that all schools would be closed for the next two days; barely 12 hours after he left the stage most workplaces and ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Carmen Staaf: Monk's Mood
There is an iconic image in Charlotte Zwerin's 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser that shows Monk, cigarette in hand, silently contemplating a misty Manhattan skyline. As heard on her recording Sounding Line (Sunnyside Records, 2025), Carmen Staaf's arrangement of “Monk's Mood" that begins with Dylan Vado's spectral bowed vibes perfectly captures the soft-focus melancholy of the image. That Staaf's piano style bears little resemblance to Monk's speaks to the enduring influence of his music, the ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Good, Bad, Deleted, Excreted
Good/BadDear Mr. P.C.: Everybody likes to quote Duke Ellington saying “There are only two kinds of music: good and bad." But isn't that subjective? Wouldn't there be shades of that, like"pretty good" and “somewhat bad?" And who gets to decide, anyway? --Mid Mike Dear MM: It's my friend Dave! If he likes it, he says it's good, and if he doesn't like it, he says it's bad. So easy! Dave ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Kandace Springs’ ‘Lady in Satin’ out now on SRP Records
ACCLAIMED JAZZ VOCALIST KANDACE SPRINGS ANNOUNCES LADY IN SATIN, A LOVING TRIBUTE TO BILLIE HOLIDAY AND HER TITULAR 1958 ALBUM FEATURES TOP-FLIGHT PORTUGUESE ENSEMBLE ORQUESTRA CLÁSSICA DE ESPINHO Lady in Satin is the fifth album by Kandace Springs, an esteemed jazz vocalist hailing from Music City: Nashville, Tennessee. A luminous tribute to Billie Holiday, the 12-song collection is reverent, luxurious, tasteful reimagining of Lady Day’s classic 1958 album of the same name. Therein, the singer is backed by the 60-piece ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Doris Day Was So Much More Than The "Girl Next Door"!
Doris Day was often called America's “girl next door"--friendly, wholesome, relatable, and unintimidating. Women wanted to be her and men wanted to marry her. It was an image so firmly attached to her that it overshadowed her remarkable talent. In her book Holding my own in No Man's Land, film critic Molly Haskell wrote about Doris as a role model. “Doris Day most always played women who followed a career, strong independent women who enjoyed ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Brian Urra: A Beacon Of Chilean Jazz On The World Stage
Acclaimed violinist and composer Brian Urra is poised to take center stage Chile’s UNESCO-supported Jazz por la Paz festival, and a landmark Futura Studio recording, underscoring his standing as a leading figure in crossover jazz. With a career spanning 25 years and awards that include the prestigious Ravinia Bridges Composition Prize, Urra has become a central force wherever he performs, observes Chilean music critic Luciana Garcia. Urra, celebrated not only for his dynamic artistry but also for his innovative crossover ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
Idris Ackamoor’s Afrofuturist Theater of Sound
The plan is not a recital. It is a happening--part theater, part ritual, part dance-floor communion--led by a saxophonist who has spent five decades making music that refuses to sit still. “I call myself an artistic being," Idris Ackamoor says, describing the continuum that stretches from his horn and piano to the page and back again. “My apartment has become my home studio. I use the piano, my saxophone, and voice as instruments to create music... Sometimes I might be ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz
A Farewell to Madrid's Café Central
It happened to Chicago with The London House and The Velvet Lounge; it happened to San Francisco with the Black Hawk Club and the Keystone Corner; and, of course, it happened to New York City with Cafe Society, Sweet Basil, Village Gate and Jazz Standard. It has also happened in many other places and cities around the world. Now, it is happening in Madrid: the emblematic Café Central of the Spanish capital closes its doors on October 12, 2025, and ......
SOURCE: All About Jazz