Sep 12, 2018 3:14 PM
Randy Weston: ‘We Have To Go All the Way Back’
When DownBeat last spoke to Randy Weston in the summer of 2014, the master pianist-composer, then 88, was planning to…
Randy Weston at The New School in New York
Sep 12, 2018 3:14 PM
When DownBeat last spoke to Randy Weston in the summer of 2014, the master pianist-composer, then 88, was planning to…
Eric Dolphy (1928–1964)
Aug 22, 2018 9:35 AM
The great promise residing in at least two of the “miscellaneous” woodwinds was best represented in the work of…
Jack Bruce (1943-2014) continued playing jazz and blues while performing in Cream during the 1960s.
Jul 17, 2018 11:47 AM
Jack Bruce was all smiles backstage. “All right!” he exclaimed, trilling the letter “R” as native Scots always…
Bassist William Parker is reaching an audience beyond the commercially restrictive categorization he refers to as the “avant-garde ghetto.”
Jun 26, 2018 9:00 AM
William Parker talks like he plays, with an improvisatory grace, free wheeling through long series of interconnected…
In addition to making significant contributions to the jazz canon’s batch of standards, saxophonist Benny Golson appeared in a pair of films and was photographed in “A Great Day In Harlem.”
Jun 19, 2018 12:31 PM
If you make it to 80 and still are at the top of your game, you’re one lucky guy.
All you have to do is look around…
Marian McPartland and Mary Lou Williams in 1978, about 14 years after the two spoke for “Mary Lou Williams: Into The Sun,” which originally was published in DownBeat on Aug. 27, 1964.
May 21, 2018 2:42 PM
Her early records are collectors’ items. Her writing and playing have become part of the pattern of jazz history. She…
Tomasz Stańko
May 18, 2018 4:52 PM
In 1993, four years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, Poland’s most prominent jazz…
At 25 years old, bassist Esperanza Spalding wasn’t overly concerned with marketability.
Apr 17, 2018 1:55 PM
Esperanza Spalding buoys with moxie-plus, high-octane ebullience, spirited determination and respectful humility in the…
In 2013, ECM reissued Charles Lloyd’s first five albums for the imprint—Fish Out Of Water, Notes From Big Sur, The Call, All My Relations and Canto—as a box set.
Apr 2, 2018 9:00 AM
A good rain in Southern California can reveal so much. When the clouds let loose and a solid breeze filters the air,…
Guitarist Wes Montgomery plays at the Essex House Hotel in Indianapolis in 1959.
Feb 21, 2018 9:28 AM
The exact dates the mysterious tapes rolled to capture Wes Montgomery and his group are unknown—it was probably…
