Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
Tony Scott died March 28. He was 85.
Born Anthony Joseph Sciacca on June 17, 1921 in Morristown, N.J., Scott was drawn to jazz at an early age. He once said that the first time he distinguished the sound of the clarinet soaring above a jazz band it seemed to him to embody the essence of life and freedom.
After a few years of private tuition, he attended the Juillard School of Music in New York. While still a student he started to feel his way in the New York jazz scene playing whenever he could, wherever he could.
Scott joined the military after graduation and was in the Army Band. He was one of the first musicians to interpret Bop on the clarinet and continued to sit in on jam sessions in the New York clubs, frequently playing several venues in the course of an evening.
Always restless and a wanderer at heart, Scott traveled through Europe, Africa and Asia before settling in Rome in the 1970s.
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
“Cerebral and academic thought is a different way to approach music,” Flea says of his continuing dive into jazz. “I’ve always relied on emotion and intuition and physicality.”
Mar 30, 2026 10:30 PM
In the relatively small pantheon of certifiable rock stars venturing into the intersection of pop music and jazz, the…
Vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater will be among the headliners at this year’s DC JazzFest.
Mar 2, 2026 9:48 PM
The first wave of artists scheduled to perform at the 2026 DC JazzFest have been announced. This year’s headliners…
Blindfold Test proctor Ted Panken, left, with the Grammy-winning Nicole Zuraitis.
Feb 24, 2026 12:00 PM
After earning the 2024 Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy for her seventh album, How Love Begins (La Reserve), comprising 12…
“These days, with curated news, where people only get half the story, people can’t even speak to family members anymore,” Schneider laments.
Mar 10, 2026 1:43 PM
Maria Schneider is doing her part to try to fix what ails America. Which got her thinking about crows, specifically,…
