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Mark Masters on Alec Wilder
One of the finest jazz albums of the year is a collaboration between trumpter-arranger Mark Masters and baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan. The album is Night Talk: The Alec Wilder Songbook (Capri). If you're unfamiliar with Masters, now's a good time to explore. His arranging skills are magnificent, and he has a long history of turning out ...
StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: "Rising Stars" in concert
With the touring portion of the music business remaining at a standstill, this week let's continue our look at some of the musicians recognized in the 2020 DownBeat Critics Poll, specifically some of the winners in the poll's “Rising Star" category. Also formerly known for a time as “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition," the “Rising Star" section ...
Annie Ross: 12 Solo Tracks
Annie Ross's recording career needs to be evaluated in two parts—her solo work and her albums with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. Today, my 12 favorite solo recordings from the 1950s: Here's Annie Ross's first recording, Le Vent Vert, in Paris in 1950. The abstract song by James Moody is wordless... Le Vent Vert Here's Ross in ...
Annie Ross: 1930-2020
Annie Ross, a pioneering vocalese singer and songwriter, and the last surviving member of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross—arguably the best-known and most successful vocal group in jazz—died on July 21. She was 89. Writing lyrics to jazz standards and modern jazz solos and singing them was a mark of subterranean hipness in the late 1940s and ...
Grover Washington Jr.: 5 Videos
On the evening of Friday, December 17, 1999, saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. was on the set of the CBS's Early Show. He played four songs with his band, and the performance was taped for airing the following morning, on the show's Saturday edition. In the green room, Washington collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where ...
Manfredo Fest: Dorian Dream
Manfredo Fest isn't the name of a multi-day rock festival for nerds. Fest was a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz keyboardist whose music was an eclectic and fascinating blend of bossa nova, classical and fusion. Fest's father was a German concert pianist who emigrated to Porto Alegre in Southern Brazil, near Uruguay, where he taught at ...
Art Blakey: Just Coolin'
Listening back to the tape he recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, N.J., on March 8, 1959, Blue Note producer Alfred Lion liked what he heard. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were on fire. The music was tight and ferocious, with the horns—trumpeter Lee Morgan and tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley—improvising on point. The ...
Remember this date - 66 years ago in jazz history
Yes, it has been 66 years. On July 17, 1954, something happened in Newport, Rhode Island that made an indelible mark on jazz history- and in the scope of popular music presentation as we know it today. Before Woodstock, before Coachella, before Monterey, there was Newport. The first Newport Jazz Festival, actually dubbed the American Jazz ...
Gerry Muligan: Four Videos
Yesterday, I had an afternoon visit with Gerry Mulligan. I began listening to his piano-less quartet in 1952, then his tentet in '53 followed by his groups with Bob Brookmeyer starting in 1954. The stuff still enchants with a fresh, clean, swinging sound. Which, of course, led me to YouTube. Here are four Mulligan clips, three ...
Paul Gonsalves: Three Videos
Over the past two days, I've posted here and here on Paul Gonsalves and a bunch of great small-group recordings by the tenor saxophonist. Today, three videos. Here's Paul Gonsalves with Duke Ellington on Blow by Blow in 1962... Here's Gonsalves with Duke in 1966, with Gonsalves reprising his spectacular Newport Jaz Festival solo on Diminuendo ...
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Points of View: Celebrating Dave Holland
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John Coltrane At 100: A Global Perspective
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Julius Hemphill: Marty Ehrlich and Tim Berne Remember a...
Live Review
Detroit Jazz Festival 2026: A Gathering in a Great Jazz City
Profile
Sequoia Snyder: Growing in the Light of the Masters
Paul's Picks
New York City Jazz Performance Preview: Fall 2026
Interview
Jasur Khalilov: From Falak to Fusion
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