Album Reviews

Tim Laughlin has long had a fluent and infectious style, a beautiful tone on his instrument, and the ability to conceive of and record definitive

Duke Ellington has been gone for 43 years but “new” music by him still continues to be discovered and released. It is fair to say

Ella In Hollywood, a live set from 1961 when Ella Fitzgerald was 44, features her at the peak of her powers on a very jazz-oriented

Earl Hines was one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. Most biographies on Hines go something like this: In the 1920s he developed

Clarinetist Leif Juul Jorgensen took a long time before finally deciding to play jazz fulltime. He took up the clarinet nearly 70 years ago but,

Jean-Francois Bonnel is a reed player best known for his decade as one of the solo stars of the Hot Antic Jazz Band. In the

The concert hall experience is by its very nature ephemeral—once the notes drift and reverberate they are remembered only by those in attendance. Sometimes, however,

Anders Bergcrantz is a prize-winning Swedish trumpeter/composer. He has just released this recording of seven compositions, six of which are his originals and the seventh

Here’s a professionally performed CD—just vocal and piano with fifteen tunes by Gershwin, Ellington, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and others. What makes it special is

During the first years of the swing era, freewheeling jazz of the 1920s was considered out of vogue and old fashioned despite being less than

In the fall of 1957, an all-star group filled mostly with Louis Armstrong alumni toured England. Co-led by trombonist Jack Teagarden and pianist Earl Hines,

Late last year, Gordon Au—trumpeter, arranger, composer, bandleader, writer, thinker, scientist, satirist, linguist—sent me the digital files for the second CD by the Grand Street

Kid Ory was one of the most important early jazz trombonists, leading legendary early groups in New Orleans during the 1910-20 period that had such

46 years after his death, Louis Armstrong is still the most famous, beloved and influential figure in jazz history. As an innovative trumpeter, singer and

This April 25 marks the centennial of Ella Fitzgerald’s birth. The First Lady Of Song was at one of the turning points in her career

It has been too long since Banu Gibson recorded. One of the major New Orleans jazz and swing singers of the past 30 years, Banu’s

Greg Murphy is a seasoned pianist and composer who has assembled a great team for this, his fourth CD as leader. It’s a mix of

I’ve heard sports fans discussing football “Dream Teams,” a hypothetical assembling of great historical players and coaches, putting together theoretical plays, and games, styles, and

Here’s another Harry Allen gem from Arbors Records. Harry has assembled an all-star team with fellow tenor saxophonists Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander and baritone

Because they followed the Original Dixieland Jazz Band by a few years and directly preceded the first recordings of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, the

This is an “outside the box” recording in that it is not the standard jazz CD. It features poetry by Langston Hughes set to music

This CD features pianist/vocalist Daniela Schachter with a small group performing eleven of composer Jimmy Van Heusen’s famous tunes. She is visiting professor of voice

This is the third CD by the PsychoAcoustic Orchestra under the direction of pianist/composer Pat Kelly. It is the first full recording in two decades.

When I assert that this is the best time to be alive if you are a jazz enthusiast, I’m not just whistling Dixieland. I am

Monika Herzig is a performing pianist, educator and author. She has assembled a group of talented women musicians to perform on this recording. She brings

Very few jazz musicians have made it to their 100th birthday but last Fen. 28 the great Danish violinist Svend Asmussen began his second century.

The Red Hot Mama (Gloria candens) was presumed to be extinct in 1966 with the passing of Sophie Tucker, who proclaimed herself the last of

Rich Conaty has hosted his weekly radio show The Big Broadcast since 1973, featuring jazz, dance music and singers from the 1920s and ‘30s. Since

Jeff Barnhart makes everything look so effortless. Like his idol Fats Waller, Barnhart not only finds it easy to take a vocal while playing heated

James P. Johnson may not have been the very first stride pianist in history but he was the most influential and the pacesetter of the

If pure, passionate and powerful horn-playing is your cup of tea, you owe yourself a big gulp of Live & Unplugged featuring Orlando-based trumpeter Charlie

Molly Ryan’s musical travelogue Let’s Fly Away is a jewel. The individual selections on the CD, all quite excellent, describe a dramatic trajectory within the

Peripatetic drummer Danny Coots, who travels the world from his home in Nashville, and stride pianist Brian Holland of Dallas have collaborated on four recordings,

In this, their third CD, the Heliotrope Ragtime Orchestra pushes their boundaries into the 1920s to pick up some great tunes from the third decade

Paolo Alderighi and Stephanie Trick, both accomplished stride pianists, first met in 2008 at a stride summit weekend in Switzerland. They kept bumping into each

Stephanie Trick’s horizons keep expanding. When we first met her, she was playing ragtime, but she soon mastered Scott Joplin and moved to stride piano,

This CD is a true treasure!  Frederick Hodges, who has earned a deserved reputation as a fine interpreter of novelty piano music and difficult forms of

This is the third “concept” recording that Rick Benjamin has tackled along with his Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, the first two being “Black Manhattan” (music of

Dr. Dave Majchrzak (or “Dr. Dave,” as he is called – for good reason) has always taken an assured approach to his playing of ragtime.

Wherever there has been an open piano at ragtime events, John Remmers has been a familiar face for many years.  This is his first recording and

Eric Marchese has been active in the Southern California ragtime scene for many years. He has founded both a ragtime festival and a ragtime society

It must be satisfying for Trebor Tichenor, the patriarch of the Tichenor Family Five, to see how his love of music is being carried on

It’s funny what love will do.  Absent are the pyrotechnics and the quirky improvisations that have long been her domain, replaced on this disc with lush

Paul Lingle spent most of his life playing for people who didn’t really listen.  From the bars and dime-a-dance joints to the Dixieland band one-nighters and

Being a ragtime reviewer, it is often interesting to see what shows up in my mailbox.  Let me also state right from the get-go that, as

Subtitled “20 Original Piano Solos by Reginald R. Robinson,” this self-produced compact disc is an eclectic mix of rags, tangos, waltzes, a blues, a march

Several years ago when Matthew Davidson released his first ragtime CD, it contained several novelty piano pieces. I was so impressed that I stated publicly

As the director of The Golden Gate Radio Orchestra, Peter Weiglin, says in his eloquent liner notes, “When Radio swept the nation, beginning in the

When I was first learning about ragtime, I kept encountering references to the cakewalk, all of which seemed to assume that the reader already knew

A nice compilation from the 1983-1989 recordings of Henry “thins” Francis, this puts into accessible CD format what was previously only available on vinyl.  Francis is

Perhaps I should put my prejudicial disclaimer right up front: I like the way Glenn Jenks plays ragtime. His approach is confident and authoritative, whether