When Ellis Marsalis and his son Jason went into a New Orleans studio in mid-February 2020 to make a duo album for Newvelle Records, they had no inkling that it would be the elder man’s final recording. “In fact,” says the younger Marsalis, “we were t

Live at Ronnie Scott’s Resonance Bill Evans’ Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby are undoubtedly two of the finest-crafted live recordings in jazz; the musicianship is legendary, the recording pristine. Yet listening to Live at Ronnie

In March 2020, McCoy Tyner passed at age 81, leaving behind a vast legacy of powerful piano on record. Naturally, many of the obituaries focused on his 1960-65 time with John Coltrane, a relationship that revolutionized jazz and brought forth some of

What will the Biden administration do to protect the performing arts? Guitarist David Stern, a member of AFM Local 802 and the Music Workers Alliance, makes strong suggestions and provides deep historical context in a thoughtful, timely essay. Also,

If nothing other than John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme had been recorded there, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.’s Van Gelder Studio would still indisputably qualify as a jazz shrine. But that cornerstone album was only one of thousands cut within the spacious r

Maria Schneider Terri Lyne Carrington Shabaka Hutchings Rudresh Mahanthappa Immanuel Wilkins Artemis Micah Thomas Ted Poor JD Allen Jason Moran & the Bandwagon Fred Hersch Trio Ambrose Akinmusire* Charles Lloyd* Bill Frisell John Scofield Mary Halvor

The Roland corporation of Japan only manufactured its TR-808 Rhythm Composer drum machine for three years, from 1980 to 1983, but that short time was long enough to alter the course of music. Although it was originally intended as a basic tool for so

“We played the first week of March at the Jazz Standard with a sextet and went into the studio on the Monday and Tuesday right after,” composer, bandleader, and master percussionist Dafnis Prieto recalls. “My plan was to stay a few days extra just to

After he lost his six-year-old daughter Ana in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, saxophonist Jimmy Greene didn’t find himself turning to any music in particular to find solace from the unfathomable loss. Yet his life to that point had i

Jeff Clayton, an alto saxophonist and multi-reedist who was co-bandleader (and co-namesake) of both the Clayton Brothers quintet and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, died Dec. 16 at his home in Los Angeles, Calif. For the past two years, he had b

I got a shock when I visited a T-Mobile store last May after losing my smartphone. I asked for the latest Samsung Galaxy S-series model—but as I spun the new S20 in my hand, I realized that Samsung had finally eliminated the headphone jack from its t

Before his passing in September 2015, saxophonist/composer Phil Woods collaborated with regular JT contributor Ted Panken on a memoir, which was recently published by Cymbal Press as Life in E Flat: The Autobiography of Phil Woods. The following excl

There are things that Great Britain’s Nubiyan Twist is, and there are things that the Leeds-born nonet-plus decidedly isn’t, according to its founder, co-composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Tom Excell. What Nubiyan Twist isn’t is stodgy, bo

Charles McPherson Wynton Marsalis Diana Krall Kurt Elling Artemis Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra Immanuel Wilkins Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project Charles McPherson Jazz Dance Suites (Chazz Mack) Daniel Hersog Jazz Orchestra Night Devoid of Stars (Cellar)

10/13/27 – 4/15/20 By Dan Tepfer As someone who likes to think of himself as rational, I can’t bring myself to believe in fate, yet Lee and I seemed destined to meet. Although piano’s been my instrument since I was a child, I had a sax in my teens, a

I’m kind of a student of ancient history,” alto saxophonist Charles McPherson says. “I’m talking about Sumerian stuff, Mesopotamia, the Middle East: I go way, way back. Our whole notion of divinity, Western or Eastern, is all around that Fertile Cres

Wallace Roney’s departure on the last day of March was a gut-punch in a year filled with far too many shocks. In the opening phase of the worldwide lockdown, his death was among the first to hit so directly, so close to home: a longtime member of the

By now, jazz fans have come to expect marvels from Maria Schneider, but the scale and magnificence of Data Lords is exceptional even for her. A concept album split into two spheres, it wrestles with the key conflict of our time: the alluring, empty p

Documenting one of the unlikeliest gigs in Monk’s career (possible alternate title: High School Thelonious), this recording sat in a box for more than five decades. That its high-spirited swing can now be heard by all of us is one of the few blessing

“I don’t listen to my own music,” Sonny Rollins said in October from his Woodstock home, chewing a Ricola cough drop as he got ready to reflect back on a lot of it. The one exception is if it comes on the radio he often has playing in the background.

One night in L.A. in the early ’90s, a 30-something John Beasley found himself, improbably, occupying the “second keyboard” chair alongside Herbie Hancock, one of his idols, during a concert tribute to Jaco Pastorius at the Hollywood Bowl. “I think w

Singer/guitarist Jonathan Butler speaks frankly about his single “Our Voices Matter,” his lifelong encounters with racism, and his hopes for a new era in the U.S. in a no-holds-barred Q&A with David R. Adler. And don’t miss our weekly conversation se

AT 8:01 p.m. sharp on September 30 at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedia, Sylvie Courvoisier launched her first COVID-era public concert for six masked, socially distanced witnesses in the balcony and a global livestream audience of thousands. Over the n