Nov 20, 2024 10:37 AM
In Memoriam: Lou Donaldson, 1926-2024
Alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, the final surviving member of the original Art Blakey quintet that in 1954 introduced…
Lou Donaldson was one of the originators of the hard bop movement in jazz back in the 1950s.
Nov 20, 2024 10:37 AM
Alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, the final surviving member of the original Art Blakey quintet that in 1954 introduced…
Quincy Jones’ gifts transcended jazz, but jazz was his first love.
Nov 5, 2024 1:00 AM
Quincy Delight Jones Jr., musician, bandleader, composer and producer, died in his home in Bel Air, California, on…
Holman’s writing or playing was documented in an astounding 552 jazz sessions over the course of more than 70 years.
Oct 8, 2024 1:13 PM
Chronology aligned the timeline of Bill Holman’s music education with a remarkable precision, positioning him to…
“We’re trying … to be true to his intention, but give it space to breathe in today’s world,” Lara Downes says about her and Edmar Colon’s reimagining of Gershwin’s classic piece.
Feb 27, 2024 1:48 PM
What single classical work has permeated our lives more deeply than George Gershwin’s (and orchestrator Ferde…
“No matter what you produce or do in your life, the thing you’ll be remembered for is rescuing all that Blue Note material,” Woody Shaw once said of Michael Cuscuna, and Cuscuna is fine with that.
Jan 3, 2024 11:24 AM
Once upon a time, a tiny handful of early jazz critics wrote about rare old jazz records like priests talking about the…
Welcome in virtually any jazz ensemble, Norvo was a fluent and transcendent product of his own virtuosity, intelligence and integrity.
Jul 27, 2023 2:32 PM
This year the DownBeat Hall of Fame Veterans Committee catches up with the manifold lives of Red Norvo (1908–’99),…
Bennett, perhaps, has the honor of the longest sustained career as a star performer in the annals of show business history, writes John McDonough.
Jul 25, 2023 2:44 PM
Tony Bennett, who ascended to the top of American popular music a year before Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne in…
Author Eugene Marlow at the Great Wall of China
Mar 21, 2023 3:38 PM
According to the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, the musical genre came late to the Far East, and especially to China.…
Burt Bacharach with Carol Bayer Sagar and Miles Davis in 1984.
Feb 14, 2023 1:34 PM
Burt Bacharach, who died in Los Angeles at age 94 on Feb. 8, was among the last of a small, oddly isolated island of…
The 1968 New Trier West Jazz Ensemble
Feb 7, 2023 1:55 PM
Like many nouveau-upstarts, jazz had to fight for recognition. Academia frowned on fun, especially when its venues were…
Karl Emil Knudsen, second from left, with members of Papa Bue’s Viking Jazz Band, which recorded Storyville’s first million-selling record.
Jan 10, 2023 11:43 AM
The oldest and largest independent jazz record label in Europe is currently celebrating its 70th anniversary, and…
The Aug. 1, 1942, issue of DownBeat announces the recording ban.
Aug 16, 2022 1:46 PM
The writing had been on the wall for weeks, maybe years. Then, 80 years ago this August, Jimmy Petrillo lowered the…
In popular arts, reputations have a shelf life, writes John McDonough. This box set aims to extend Erroll Garner’s.
Jan 4, 2022 12:58 PM
Last fall, in partnership with the Mack Avenue Music Group, the Erroll Garner Project marshaled a holiday-season…
Booker Little, 2021 Veterans Committee choice for the DownBeat Hall of Fame
Aug 17, 2021 12:49 PM
The most wide-ranging article this magazine ever published about trumpeter Booker Little was his obituary. It was the…
Branford Marsalis played the featured soloist role for JLCO’s tribute to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins at Ravinia.
Aug 4, 2021 11:32 AM
Jazz returned to the Ravina Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, in late July following the silent summer of 2020. The…
Don Gold, circa 1980s
Jul 12, 2021 6:11 AM
Back in 1956, DownBeat was in a trench of transition but only vaguely aware of where it might lead. The age of big…
Andra Day portrays Billie Holiday in The United States vs. Billie Holiday.
Mar 1, 2021 4:36 PM
Director Lee Daniels has taken Johann Hari’s drug war history, Chasing the Scream, mixed it with Victor Hugo’s Les…
Charlie Young conducts the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.
Feb 8, 2021 8:52 AM
“Jazz is a very big word,” composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein assured us when he explained jazz to America in the…
Kevin Whitehead recently published Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film.
Dec 7, 2020 2:45 PM
In 1991, a panel of jazz musicians faced an audience of fans eager with questions. One fan cited a cluster of movies—…
James Erskine’s documentary Billie includes vintage photos that have been digitally colorized by artist Marina Amaral.
Dec 5, 2020 11:56 AM
How does one craft a biography of Billie Holiday with a surprise ending?
She is perhaps the most intensely…
DownBeat Archives/Bruno of Hollywood
Aug 10, 2020 11:51 AM
Pianist Teddy Wilson, whose partnership with Billie Holiday in the 1930s bequeathed us one of the great collective…
Buddy Rich at New York’s Arcadia Ballroom in May 1947
Apr 1, 2020 9:09 AM
Buddy Rich died in 1987 at the age of 70. For 68 of those years, he was one of the world’s greatest drummers, first…
Irving Berlin (1888–1989)
Mar 16, 2020 8:04 AM
A song is a mysterious abstraction. It enters the world without identity. It has little character or context. No one…
Dave Brubeck (1920–2012)
Dec 17, 2019 9:00 PM
The lesson was simple: Death is not the end, particularly when it involves a great, palpable legacy. The artistic…
Nat “King” Cole (1919–1965)
Oct 28, 2019 2:46 PM
Big CD box sets are like fancy cars or eye-catching jewelry—fun to own but expensive to buy. Then comes the holidays,…
Nat “King” Cole sat at the crossroads of jazz and pop.
Oct 18, 2019 9:21 AM
It’s amazing how much Nat “King” Cole material we have to forgive in order to find the man we revere in this, the…
Norman Granz (1918–2001)
Mar 18, 2019 9:44 AM
The history of jazz offers a select group of rebels who profoundly bent its fortunes without ever playing a note of…
The book Art Kane: Harlem 1958 explores the origin of one of the most famous photos in jazz history and includes this version, identifying the 57 musicians.
Dec 8, 2018 12:39 PM
Many jazz fans have seen the iconic image, but few know its complete backstory. On Aug. 12, 1958, graphic designer and…
The members of the Four Freshmen are Tommy Boynton (left), Bob Ferreira, Stein Malvey and Jonathan Gaines.
Dec 8, 2017 6:34 PM
The star system in the music business resists longevity because there are no replacement parts for stardom. But with…
A scene from inside the Bix Beiderbecke Museum in Davenport Iowa, which opens to the public Aug. 3.
Aug 1, 2017 5:53 PM
You can count the number permanent American museums dedicated to the career of a single jazz musician on the fingers of…
Music by Fats Waller appears on The Savory Collection, Vol. 3.
Jun 21, 2017 11:07 AM
Jazz has always felt an acute discomfort in the close company of acceptance. For a music that takes pride in its…
Kristin E. Ellis and Al’Jaleel McGhee perform in Paradise Blue, which premiered April 26 at the TimeLine Theatre in Chicago.
May 12, 2017 9:00 AM
I wonder if anyone will ever write a serious drama or movie about a jazz musician who is not beset by explosive inner…
Kenny Barron and bassist Dave Young perform in an Oscar Peterson tribute concert at Symphony Center on April 7. Todd Rosenberg
Apr 14, 2017 12:20 PM
The evening of April 7 saw a rare procession of mainstream piano mastery cross the stage of Symphony Center in…
Eric Miller (1941–2017)
Mar 22, 2017 9:20 AM
Eric Miller, whose career as an engineer, archivist and producer put many milestones of jazz history into collectors’…
Joshua Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon, Billy Porter and Brian Stokes Mitchell, with Richard Riaz Yoder, in a scene from Shuffle Along.
Jul 1, 2016 2:52 PM
Jazz history, for the most part, has not been made on the musical stage. But Broadway is madly tapping its feet these…
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In addition to making significant contributions to the jazz canon’s batch of standards, saxophonist Benny Golson appeared in a pair of films and was photographed in “A Great Day In Harlem.”
Oct 12, 2021 12:45 PM
If you make it to 80 and still are at the top of your game, you’re one lucky guy.
All you have to do is look…
Freddy Cole (1931–2020)
Jun 29, 2020 11:37 AM
Freddy Cole is a singer and a pianist. Outside of a couple of showpieces he was compelled to compose by way of…
