Jazz

Word arrived this morning of the death of Paul Motian.  The drummer was 80.  Motian was born in Philadelphia and raised in Providence.  He played around New England in his teens, served...

72-year-old Paul Winter reflected on the serendipity that altered his likely course from becoming “a bad lawyer” to his career as a musician when we spoke last week. “In that time, none of us, at least...

Paul Winter, who’s been synonymous with New Age and World music for over 40 years, began his career as a hard-swinging alto saxophonist in the mold of Cannonball Adderley and Phil Woods.  In 1961,...

I’ve lately been enchanted by a couple of Percy Heath features produced by Artists House and posted on the internet. In the first, the great bassist, who’s 91st birthday anniversary is today, discusses...

I spoke with Peter Guralnick on December 17 about his new book, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock’n’Roll. Guralnick, who turned 73 on December 15, is the author of the definitive, two-volume...

Northampton bade farewell to Phil Chu on Sunday.  Chu died on December 15, and his funeral was held in New York, where he was born in 1935.  But since he’d moved to Northampton after his retirement...

A couple of years ago, The Republican, Springfield’s daily newspaper, reported on the spotty location and neglected grounds around the statue of Samuel Chapin in Merrick Park. The Puritan, named...

Readers Poll Heavily for the Late Saxophonist The one election on which there’s near-unanimous consensus this week is that of Phil Woods to the Downbeat Hall of Fame. The Springfield, MA, native died...

The Master at 83 Phil Woods with drummer Greg Caputo, Court Square, Springfield, August 9, 2014 Yesterday was Phil Woods’s 83rd birthday. I wrote about Woods in August when he performed at the Springfield...

Phil Woods writes a regular column in The Note, the semi-annual publication of the Al Cohn Memorial Collection at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. In the Winter 2015 edition, I was...