Beauty is a Rare Thing: Celebrating International Jazz Day (Revisited)
Sean MurphyAll hope is not lost. At least enough people are still making --and listening to-- jazz that we can even attempt to initiate what hopefully becomes an ongoing occasion. In…
Yusef Lateef: R.I.P., Gentle Giant (One Year Later)
We have lost one of the great, indeed one of the greatest, ones. Yusef Lateef, aged 93 years young, was finally stopped by cancer on December 23. I say "finally"…
7 + 1 From McCoy Tyner For His 76th
McCoy Tyner turns 76 years young today. In a saner and more soulful world, Tyner would be a household name. As it is, he remains an American treasure, a remarkable…
Hurricane Music, Sandy Style (Two Years Later)
Let's just get right into it. Some of Young's finest blistering guitar fury. Led Zep may have had the hammer of the gods, but there were four of them; Neil…
No One Has Ever Done Anything as Well as John Coltrane Played the Saxophone
9/23/14: Today would have been the great one's 88th birthday. Respect. *** 5/1/2010: The question isn’t, really, about who might be interested in this documentary; it is about who might…
September 15, 1963 (Revisited)
On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the…
10 for NYC by 10, on 9/11
New York City would be unimaginable without jazz, and vice versa. Here then is a tribute for --and by-- several musicians who help define and celebrate the cultural mecca of…
Wayne Shorter: JuJu at 50
Fifty years ago, today, this masterpiece dropped on an unworthy world. Borrowing Coltrane's band, Wayne Shorter proved he could bring the ruckus like the best of them. This, in fact,…
Charlie Haden, R.I.P.
i. 1959 was a watershed year for jazz music (arguably the greatest single year for jazz in all history–which is saying a lot). Here’s a taste: Miles Davis Kind of…
Beauty is a Rare Thing: Celebrating International Jazz Day (Revisited)
All hope is not lost. At least enough people are still making --and listening to-- jazz that we can even attempt to initiate what hopefully becomes an ongoing occasion. In…