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…
On May, the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston will celebrates its 131st Commencement at 3:00 p.m.
Young Concert Artists Founder and Director Susan Wadsworth will present this year’s Commencement Address, and will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree. Other 2002 honorary doctorate recipients include: Venezuelan youth orchestra system mastermind José Antonio Abreu, jazz saxophone legend Sonny Rollins, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Perle.
Approximately 250 musicians will receive the Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees as well as undergraduate, graduate, and artist diplomas. NEC will also award its first Professional Certificate in The Art of String Quartet Playing to the Kuss Quartet of Germany. This new program, designed to provide concentrated professional training to very select pre established string quartets, is led by NEC faculty Paul Katz, the founding cellist of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Quartet. The Kuss Quartet, the first to enroll in this elite program, has been at NEC for the past year under Katz’s tutelage.
“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…
