Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Blindfold Test: Buster Williams
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Tom Harrell is among the recipients of a second round of Jazz Coalition grants.
(Photo: Angela Harrell)Grants Announced: Efforts to offset the financial setbacks performers face because of the coronavirus pandemic continue, with the Jazz Coalition, a nonprofit granting organization, announcing its second round of $1,000 allocations on Aug. 18. Artists who will be composing new works and premiering them after the pandemic recedes include trumpeter Tom Harrell, drummers Allison Miller and Makaya McCraven, and pianist Sullivan Fortner. To date, the coalition has dispensed more than $100,000 to musicians, according to a press release.
Life After Healdsburg: After founding California’s Healdsburg Jazz Festival 22 years ago, Jessica Felix is set to step away from her role as artistic director in September. The Los Angeles-born Felix first worked at the Keystone Korner jazz venue in the North Beach area of San Francisco and eventually moved north, opening a jewelry shop, where her stereo continuously spilled out jazz. Her work planning and hosting shows and listening sessions morphed into founding the festival in 1999. “I want to relax, travel, socialize and make my jewelry again,” Felix said about the future. “It’s time to be in the audience.”
Final Bar: Helen Jones Woods, trombonist in the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, died from COVID-19 on July 25 in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 96. Her pioneering ensemble—an all-female, interracial band—toured the country and performed overseas for troops during World War II. The band only cut a few sides, and Woods eventually stepped away from music, turning to work as a nurse and social worker. ... Drummer Charli Persip died Aug. 23 in New York at the age of 91. Persip frequently worked alongside folks like Dizzy Gillespie and Lee Morgan, while also leading a big band and teaching at The New School in New York. ... Saxophonist Steve Grossman, who led a career that found him in 1970s ensembles led by Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, died Aug. 13 in New York State. ... Don McCaslin, a Bay Area multi-instrumentalist and the father of saxophonist Donny McCaslin, died July 16 at the age of 93 in Capitola, just outside of Santa Cruz. The elder McCaslin’s ensemble Warmth was an area mainstay and served as an early platform for his musically inclined son.
“What I got from Percy was the dignity of playing the bass,” Buster Williams said of Percy Heath.
Aug 26, 2025 1:53 PM
Buster Williams, who at the age of 83 has been on the scene for 65 years, had never done a Blindfold Test. The first…
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
The Free Slave, Cosmos Nucleus and Sunset To Dawn: three classic Muse albums being reissued this fall by Timer Traveler Recordings.
Aug 26, 2025 1:32 PM
Record producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman has launched his next endeavor, the archival label Time Traveler…
This year’s Jazz em Agosto set by the Darius Jones Trio captured the titular alto saxophonist at his most ferocious.
Aug 26, 2025 1:31 PM
The organizers of Lisbon, Portugal’s Jazz em Agosto Festival assume its audience is thoughtful and independent. Over…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
