The last of Tony Williams’ fusion albums, The Joy of Flying was the drummer’s first since the mid-’60s without some form of the Lifetime name attached to his band. It’s a far-flung effort with a large ...

T here are conversations that begin before anyone has spoken, shaped instead by the residue of attention already in the air. The promotional image appears, … Read More “Jazz Vocalist and Composer ...

Fifty years ago, a United States Senator named John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to mark the first anniversary of a Hungarian student uprising against … Read More “The Gig: Haynes, His Way” ...

Jazz singer Andy Bey, who died at 85 on April 26, 2025, was a striking vision at the piano: a compact, muscley, mahogany-skinned man, half-smiling and lost in his own inscrutable world. Bey’s midnight ...

Like anyone else who was even remotely associated with the guitar back in 1976-either as aficionado or practicing musician-I was blown away by Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life. With that solo debut on ...

A significant addition to Ellington’s latter day recordings, this double-disc release presents for the first time in true stereo every note that the band played at Newport over that famous weekend of ...

A massive project, but one well worth the effort and time that went into it, this collection of all existing recordings by Duke Ellington for Victor literally sums up his long career, since it begins ...

Alvin Batiste, a New Orleans-born clarinetist who played in modern settings far removed from the swing and Dixieland music usually associated with his instrument, died Sunday from an apparent heart ...

Perhaps you’ve read my commentary on Pat Metheny’s new Side-Eye album. But there’s more guitar this season. As a start, here are four releases from the first quarter of 2026 that set the bar high and ...

The 1966 album Miles Smiles is readily available in all formats. Listeners will have no trouble locating and listening to “Circle,” a Miles Davis composition, the album’s second track. But they will ...

We’re heading toward the end of 2025 and tallying up lists, which might take a few different forms here as December unfolds. But this first list is mine — no committee, no poll, just my subjective ...

A generation of musicians had their lives changed by this record and subsequent tour by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Guitarists who had been quite content covering “Layla” and “Whipping Post” were ...