The DownBeat 2020 Gift Guide

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A four-disc Charles Mingus set is a highlight of our seasonal shopping guide for music fanatics.

(Photo: Joseph L. Johnson)

If you’re shopping for gifts this holiday season, DownBeat has got you covered with our 2020 Holiday Gift Guide.

Check out features on a new live set of Charles Mingus performances, a handful of Charlie Parker gifts to mark his centennial, vibraphonist Warren Wolf’s first holiday album, books by critic Kevin Whitehead on jazz cinema and academic Tammy L. Kernodle on the life of Mary Lou Williams. Plus, our Yuletide Music Roundup highlights the best holiday albums of 2020.

Don’t forget, DownBeat makes the perfect gift for anyone who loves jazz. We’ve got great deals on subscriptions, whether you want to read DownBeat in print, online or on your tablet. And don’t miss out on our weekly newsletter.

To read the Holiday Gift Guide from our December issue, click here.

To read the Yuletide Music Roundup for 2020, click here.

To order a subscription to DownBeat, or to buy a DownBeat book, hat or T-shirt, click here. DB

These stories originally were published in the December 2020 issue of DownBeat.



  • Jack_DeJohnette_by_Steve_Sussman.jpg

    ​Jack DeJohnette boasted a musical resume that was as long as it was fearsome.

  • KurtElling_6.2.25_by_ElliotMandel-REV-6.jpg

    “Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.

  • Pat_Metheny_Side-Eye_III_Jimmy_Katz.jpg

    Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at ​Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.

  • Courtesy_Bobby_Bradford_GoFundMe_page.jpg

    “[That’s] the thing of the beboppers,” Bradford said. “These guys were important for not only playing that wonderful music, but they knew a sort of social stance, you see?”

    Bobby Bradford: Phoenix Rising

    It was a calm, balmy, near-perfect evening in Westwood, California, not far from UCLA, in the expansive courtyard at…

  • Esperanza_Spalding_3825_5x7.jpeg

    ​Esperanza Spalding closed an audacious Chicago Jazz Festival set with “Endangered Species.”


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