Jazz

Thelonious Monk It’s now 35 years since Thelonious Monk’s death in 1982, and over 45 since his last significant recordings were made. The pianist was 30 by the time he made his first session...

Tom McClung To local readers who knew Tom McClung, the news of his death on Sunday at age 60 at his home in Normandy is being greeted with a combination of shock and incredulity. The pianist was a fixture...

I had the pleasure of seeing Tommy Flanagan several times in the 1980s and ’90s at clubs in Hartford, Cambridge, and at the Village Vanguard, his home base in New York. When I introduced him at the Litchfield...

The last time I saw Tony Bennett was on the stage of the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Montreal a year ago. I missed his Costa Mesa concert by a couple of days when I was in San Diego in May, and...

Tony Bennett included Ruby Braff in a select group of “pure musicians” (Shirley Horn, Joao Gilberto, and Milt Jackson) who have “a sound that’s as precious as a string of pearls or a rare diamond. “ ...

Here’s my annotated Top Five for 2011, followed by 25 runners-up: Karrin Allyson: ‘Round Midnight Concord Jazz  http://www.karrin.com/ Allyson has a rare gift for blending wry insouciance and emotional...

Fresh Air Acknowledges Hartford’s Jazz Scene Fresh Air’s review of TRIANGULAR, Ralph Peterson’s new trio release with bassist Luques Curtis and pianist Zaccai Curtis, gives it up not only for the...

Roy Eldridge, Snooky Young, Clark Terry, and Harry Edison Jazz mythology rightly honors places like Mahogany Hall in New Orleans, the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, the Sunset Cafe in Kansas City, the Bluebird...

Von Freeman’s been on my mind lately.  I knew the 88-year-old saxophonist was no longer in action, but he’d become so emblematic of Chicago jazz that in anticipation of a trip I’m making to the Windy...

Count Basie begins his autobiography, Good Morning Blues, with the story of how he was pleasantly roused from a sleep-it-off hangover by Walter Page’s Blue Devils playing outside the rooming house...