Jazz

The Miles Davis session known as Walkin’ has long been heralded as the harbinger of Hard Bop to come, and as one of Davis’s greatest recorded performances.   Martin Williams, Dick Katz,...

Here’s a teaser for Jazz a la Mode on January 1.  We’ll get the new year started with the good vibes of Milt Jackson, who was born on New Year’s Day in 1923.  We’ll hear Bags on various recordings...

The closest I ever came to meeting Charles Mingus was when I followed him up the stairs of the Jazz Workshop in Boston on a wintry Sunday afternoon in 1972. He’d just finished his matinee set, and as he...

Here’s a counterweight to yesterday’s blog about my encounter with 42 college students who’d never heard of Duke Ellington.  Happily, I can report that Connecticut River Valley venues have been...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Speaks at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963 Notwithstanding the bold and daring recordings made by Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Charles Mingus, and other...

I devoted a couple of hours this morning to watching these televised performances by Thelonious Monk’s Quartet and the trios of Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans on the BBC series, Jazz 625. Humphrey...

When I returned home from a month-long visit to France in 1991, my sister Paula, who lived in Paris, advised that if I found myself needing a quick hit of Europe, I could always jump in the car and drive...

Kingston-Harlem Grooves Today is Monty Alexander’s 70th birthday.  The pianist was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and while he’s an outstanding exponent of mainstream grooves, his career began...

Mose Allison, who died on November 15, four days after his 89th birthday, told NPR in 1986 that his songs could be grouped in three categories, “Slapstick, social comment, and personal crisis,”...

I’m sure glad I got to see Mulgrew Miller as often as I did. Before he made much of a name for himself, I caught him with the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington at the UMass Spring...