Album Reviews

“Just relax and play,” (John) Hammond instructed them. “No engineers in sight, no flashing lights—nothing but music. Only, please keep cigarettes off the piano.” The

Last month I reviewed Matthew de Lacey Davidson’s double album The Graceful Ghost. This month my focus is on another multi-disc set issued by Davidson

It’s crazy to me that eight years into reviewing for The Syncopated Times the only previous time I covered After Midnight was their Christmas album.

I’m not a natural ragtime fan, at least not the music most people think of when they hear the word. Solo piano ragtime often feels

My review column hasn’t visited the West Coast in a while, which would seem strange to readers who have had a jazz rag in their

A slight stretch for this column, the Blue Moon Marquee is a spirited New Orleans blues band. On New Orleans Sessions which has the music

There is no point in mincing words. The Joymakers’ Down Where The Bluebonnets Grow is one of the hottest jazz records of the year. The

There’s this internet meme from 2019 (bear with me) which goes, “Wake up babe, new just dropped.” The catchphrase implies insomnia-inducing levels of excitement about

Back in college one of my pastimes, hep cat that I was, was chasing the library closing time copying their LPs to cassette tapes. My

Johnny Guarnieri and Harry Warren had one main thing in common. When one thinks of the great jazz pianists, Guarnieri is often overlooked while lists

In the current jazz scene, there are a countless number of talented female jazz-oriented singers, as opposed to just a handful of male jazz singers.

JAZZ CLASSIC OF THE MONTH In Duke Ellington’s remarkably productive career, 1953-55 is considered by some to be his “off period” despite musical evidence to

So much musical wealth bursts from the grooves of Mosaic’s 11-CD set of jazz V-Discs that you’ll be forgiven for forgetting that the 263 sides

This year has seen pianist and composer Matthew de Lacey Davidson prodigiously successful in album production: his 2024 releases include two CD sets totalling five

Don’t buy these albums. I’ve never said that in a review before, I have far more albums I like in my queue to bother reviewing

Lucien Barbarin (1956-2020), the grandnephew of Paul Barbarin, was a very expressive New Orleans trombonist. In his career he mostly played locally (including with Dr.

Colin Perry was raised in Kentucky with music on both sides of his family. His father’s side of the family exposed him to Appalachian fiddlers

I watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom the other night. I thought it was going to be a movie about music—it was not. Rather, it’s a

Champian Fulton’s series of rewarding recordings are known to many of the readers of The Syncopated Times. She is equally skilled as a 1940s-type singer

JAZZ CLASSIC OF THE MONTH It was one of the great swing bands but it made no recordings that were available to the American public.

Because a full drum set could overwhelm the other instruments in the early days of jazz recording, drummers of the time were restricted to utilizing

The Hot Club Of San Francisco has been active since the early 1990s. There have been many personnel changes along the way other than its

The Hot Club Of Tenerife (named after an island in Spain) is led by Italian guitarist Filippo Dall’Asta. He began playing guitar when he was