May 13, 2025 12:00 PM
Review: Alternative Takes on Jazz Guitar
There has been no more fervent a champion of guitar, in all of its myriad colors and expressions, over the past 20…
Nels Cline issues his jazziest Blue Note offering yet with Consentrik Quartet: from left, Ingrid Laubrock, Cline, Tom Rainey and Chris Lightcap.
May 13, 2025 12:00 PM
There has been no more fervent a champion of guitar, in all of its myriad colors and expressions, over the past 20…
Mathias Eick is a trumpeter of serious tone and substance.
Apr 29, 2025 11:08 AM
There’s something about ECM records. No matter who the artist is, they never seem to be in a hurry. Don’t mistake…
Tommy Castro & The Painkillers
Apr 1, 2025 7:55 AM
Tommy Castro & The Painkillers: Closer To The Bone (Alligator; ★★★★ 50:25)
A bandleader for 30-plus years,…
Pianist Marilyn Crispell tantalized in two very different settings at the festival.
Nov 12, 2024 12:08 PM
Martin Luther King Jr. gave the opening address for Berliner Jazztage 1964, which was the first edition of the annual…
Rick Estrin and the Nightcats are among the few seated at the head table in the royal court of blues.
Jul 23, 2024 1:26 PM
Rick Estrin & The Nightcats: The Hits Keep Coming (Alligator; 48:53 ★★★★) Rick Estrin and his nattily dressed…
Teiku plays to the spiritual side of Jewish ancestral songs with avant-jazz soundscapes.
Jul 23, 2024 1:21 PM
577 Records has a knack for discovering exceptional emerging artists and bringing them to the forefront of jazz and…
Sonny Rollins’ A Night At The Village Vanguard was the first album documenting the saxophonist as a bandleader in live performance.
Jul 23, 2024 1:09 PM
So much praise has been heaped (deservedly) on tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ A Night At The Village Vanguard since…
Aug 15, 2023 11:53 AM
“I’m not going to be around forever and ever,” Ramsey Lewis told his co-author Aaron Cohen as they were planning…
May 16, 2023 2:12 PM
Drummer and bandleader Chick Webb is barely remembered today. If he is known at all, it’s likely because he’s the…
The all-star collective Dinner Party celebrates backstage at Blue Note Jazz Fest Napa. From left: Terrace Martin, Snoop Dogg, Talib Kweli, Dave Chappell, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, Chris Dave and Derrick Hodge.
Aug 16, 2022 12:24 PM
The drive up to the Blue Note Jazz Fest Napa on the last weekend of July, through winding roads and sunbaked hills, was…
