n Labor Day weekend, downtown Detroit’s Hart Plaza overflowed with jazz fans eager to hear local and national musicians at the 47th annual Detroit Jazz Festival (September 4–7). One of the few major ...

John Zorn’s Flatlands at Solar Myth, John Zorn conducting. L-R: Simon Hanes, Zorn, Ches Smith, Matt Hollenberg. Photo by the author. f you had to credit/blame any one person for twisting the jazz ...

hen writing about this year’s centenary celebrations of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, it’s been fascinating to see how their respective work has been revisited and redefined for the 21st century. One ...

arly on in this memoir-of-sorts from Al Schackman (via A.G. Dunewood Publishing Co.), the venerable guitarist (93 this October) mentions that he has perfect pitch and a photographic memory. Both serve ...

rom 1969 through the late ’90s, listeners to jazz radio in England, Germany, Denmark, Holland and other European countries heard one of the most seductive sounds ever to come out of their speakers: ...

ere are A.D. Amorosi’s monthly picks, coming to you the last Tuesday of the month. Ralph Alessi, A Sun That Never Sets (ECM Records) In his move from quartet to quintet and the fortification of an ...

The Sound of Philadelphia got a little quieter this week as Dexter Wansel, the jazz fusion keyboardist, singer and composer behind the hit album Life on Mars — a space-soul classic that turns 50 this ...

Just weeks away from sharing a 100th birthday with fellow jazz players Miles Davis and John Coltrane, guitarist-composer Joe Negri — known to PBS-loving kids and parents as Handyman Negri, Fred Rogers ...

L-R: Charles Mingus, Charles McPherson (age 21), Pepper Adams. At the original Five Spot Café, New York, 1960. Via charlesmingus.com Editor’s Note: We are pleased to present, in two parts, this ...

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 ...

In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, Bob Dylan writes about his early days in New York’s Greenwich Village, when the 21-year-old would eagerly seek out musicians, writers and artists, anyone ...

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 ...