Album Reviews

Anne Phillips has had a life in music if not always on record. Her career as a jazz singer began as a high schooler in

If the name Olive Brown doesn’t ring any bells you can forgive yourself. She wasn’t a Golden Age blues singer or even a chanteuse of

Muggsy Spanier (1901-67) was always predictably exciting in his playing. After he formed his style by the late-1920s, the cornetist never changed his approach and

There’s no shortage of new Christmas Jazz, Christmas Swing, or even Christmas Death Metal.  But Halloween music has gotten the short end of the femur

In 2018, the Galvanized Jazz Band was hired to fill in for a band for two days at the Trinity-Pawling School in upstate New York.

Give or take a century, Arthur Fields was a neighbor of mine. Though he was born in Philadelphia, he spent much of his childhood and

did some of his most innovative trumpet playing and singing during the 1925-32 period while continuing to grow in power and depth throughout the 1940s

Protobilly is an in-depth exploration of the reverberations of American popular songs of the 19th Century and the Turn-of-the-Century through early country music in the

Who woulda thunk it? When a 95-year old New York City jazz legend teamed up with a 28-year old punk rocker from New Hampshire to

The Galvanized Jazz Band is in their 48th year of existence, having been formed in 1971. A no-nonsense and hard-driving band that is driven by cornetist

The story of the Riverboat Stompers begins in 1990 among an extended group of trad jazz players filling in a regular gig under the generic

Led by sousaphonist Roman Bartnicki, the R.B. Five is a quintet that also features trumpeter Dominik Mietla, trombonist Robert Szczerba, Janusz Witko on clarinet, tenor

Tom Stagg informs us in the CD booklet, “This session was recorded during the annual Ken Colyer Trust visit to New Orleans and was listed

The California Feetwarmers were recommended to me by no less than Vince Giordano of the Nighthawks and Robin Rapuzzi of Tuba Skinny. I’ve long enjoyed

During the dozen years that Jack Teagarden had left after leaving the Louis Armstrong All-Stars in 1952, the great trombonist and singer mostly played a

Eric Seddon is a New Orleans-styled clarinetist who plays in the Cleveland area. In 2017 he led a trad invasion of Cleveland’s Bop Stop, an

Evan Arntzen comes from a very musical family. His grandfather played soprano and clarinet, his father is a pianist, his mother is a singer, and

When I heard the name Tenement Jazz Band my first thought was “I bet they’re from Scotland”. I was hoping Glasgow, where twenty years ago

Cornetist Paul Strandberg from Sweden played in the late 1970s and 80s with Scanjazz, the Absalon Orchestra, and the Hot House Jazzmen. Strandberg led Paul

Formed in 2003 in Grenada, Spain, the Potato Head Jazz Band has stayed somewhat under the radar—my radar, at least—until now, and that is unfortunate

“Listening jazz that just happens to be great for dancing” is the gist of one recommendation I read about Jack’s Cats, a surprising group of

The French cornetist Jean-Pierre Morel has been playing classic jazz at least since 1966 when he made his recording debut with the Famous Melody Boys.

St. Louis has deep roots in American musical history. It was the cradle of classic ragtime and a destination city for jazz age riverboats. During