Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
Mary Lou Williams, Writ Large
Mary Lou Williams was an idiosyncratic composer, arranger and pianist whose 60-plus-year career remains ruthlessly hard…
Mary Lou Williams’ long, fruitful career is lovingly chronicled by Tammy L. Kernodle in Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, which has been published in paperback for the first time.
Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
Mary Lou Williams was an idiosyncratic composer, arranger and pianist whose 60-plus-year career remains ruthlessly hard…
Recordings of Charles Mingus’ 1964 and 1975 performances in Bremen, Germany, represent two very different periods of the bandleader’s career.
Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
Charles Mingus—rightly or wrongly—is frequently characterized as a wildly inventive but frustrated composer, caught…
Kevin Whitehead recently published Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film.
Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
In 1991, a panel of jazz musicians faced an audience of fans eager with questions. One fan cited a cluster of movies—…
Warren Wolf gets into the holiday spirit with his album Christmas Vibes.
Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
For years, vibraphonist Warren Wolf and 3D Jazz Trio pianist Jackie Warren cared not a whit about Christmas music. But…
Charlie Parker: The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection (Verve/UMe) is just one of the releases coinciding with Bird’s centennial.
Dec 7, 2020 9:00 AM
Charlie Parker’s alto saxophone remains one of the most recognizable sounds in the history of recorded jazz, even 65…
Christian McBride was voted Jazz Artist of the Year and topped the Bass category in this year’s DownBeat Readers Poll.
Dec 7, 2020 8:56 AM
Christian McBride has some valuable wisdom to share. He knows how to make jazz more popular with young people and how…
Eddie Palmieri is set to stream a performance on Saturday.
Dec 7, 2020 8:55 AM
As performers look to replace income from lost gigs and regain a sense of community amid the coronavirus pandemic, a…
James Erskine’s documentary Billie includes vintage photos that have been digitally colorized by artist Marina Amaral.
Dec 4, 2020 1:53 PM
How does one craft a biography of Billie Holiday with a surprise ending?
She is perhaps the most intensely…
Guitarist Pat Metheny topped two DownBeat Readers Poll categories this year: Guitar and Jazz Album, for his disc From This Place (Nonesuch).
Dec 4, 2020 8:47 AM
A conversation with Pat Metheny is similar to one of his shows: Some parts seem carefully constructed, while others are…
Chien Chien Lu has toured and recorded with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt.
Dec 3, 2020 8:57 AM
Before 2012, Chien Chien Lu had never heard jazz. Having spent her childhood taking piano lessons and playing marimba…
