Feb 3, 2026 12:10 AM
In Memoriam: Ken Peplowski, 1959–2026
Ken Peplowski, a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist who straddled the worlds of traditional and modern jazz, died Feb. 2…
Telarc announced yesterday that it has signed New York-based jazz vocalist Melissa Morgan. Morgan will make her recording debut in March 2009 with the release of Until I Met You.
Trained in classical music at a young age, Morgan shifted toward jazz in her teen years, due in part to her grandmother’s extensive collection of Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson LPs. At SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, she studied with artists like Yolanda Bavan, Jon Faddis and Roseanna Vitro. Morgan gigged around the New York club scene after college and was named a semi-finalist in the 2004 Thelonius Monk International Jazz Competition in Washington, DC. Last year, she appeared with the Next Generation of Jazz All-Stars at the Concord Fujitsu Jazz Festival in Japan.
“How amazing it was to listen to Melissa’s recording for the first time,” said Telarc President Robert Woods. “I found myself asking, ‘Where did this wonderful young jazz singer come from?’ She is the real deal. And when I saw her for the first time I was stunned by how grounded, collected and natural she is at delivering the music and the emotion. At a time when we wonder where the next good jazz musician may come from, Melissa is a real treat.”
Of Until I Met You, Morgan said, “I wanted it to be soulful and emotional, and I wanted it to run the gamut of happy and sad and everything in between, with lyrics that are very potent. I also wanted it to be like those classic recordings of the ‘50s and ‘60s, where there are a lot of musicians on it and there’s a real family sense to it. That’s exactly what this record has turned out to be.”
Peplowski first came to prominence in legacy swing bands, including the final iteration of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, before beginning a solo career in the late 1980s.
Feb 3, 2026 12:10 AM
Ken Peplowski, a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist who straddled the worlds of traditional and modern jazz, died Feb. 2…
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…
“I play what I want and what I like,” said Andrew Cyrille. “I use my knowledge artistically and professionally.”
Feb 3, 2026 12:15 AM
Midway through August, a few days after concluding a week at the Village Vanguard with the quartet that Andrew Cyrille…
Marsalis will, if he chooses to use it, have a strong voice in perpetuating his vision through a role in choosing his successors.
Feb 3, 2026 12:09 AM
For the better part of a year, rumors have been swirling that Wynton Marsalis was going to step down as artistic and…
Lettuce, from left: Eric Coomes, Adam Deitch, Ryan Zoidis, Eric Bloom, Adam Smirnoff and Nigel Hall
Feb 17, 2026 11:05 AM
They were Berklee misfits. Neither jazzy enough for the straightahead crowd at Boston’s highly prestigious College of…
