Features

Eddie Durham was born in 1906 in San Marcos, a small, rural horse and buggy town formed in 1808 and located in Hays County, Texas,

When I’m not writing about jazz, I’m a kids’ science educator. It’s true—since 2020 I’ve run a small business which delivers workshops and parties to

“If I had the wings of an angel,” goes the old song. I would have needed wings to enjoy all the music at the 2024

Jazz fans in the 21st century enjoy jazz primarily by listening to recordings on LPs, CDs, music streaming services, and by attending live performances in

I think it’s safe to say that most of us jazz enthusiasts are viewed by the youth of today as amusing yet hopelessly insulated from

The theme of this year’s 11th annual Jazzing Fest in Barcelona, hosted as always by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, was dubbed “The New York-Berlin-Barcelona

The Big Spider Back—I mean Bix Beiderbecke—Jazz Festival took off on August 1st through 3rd, congregating enthusiastic folks back to Davenport, Iowa, including my mum

Last year, I happened across an old copy of Talking Jazz in a second-hand bookshop. The 1987 memoir is a compilation of essays and other

My professional baseball career happened entirely inside my head. What went on in there may or may not interest you, but for me it—both the

Like the aurora borealis, Swedish swinger Gunhild Carling lit up the night sky over Syracuse’s Clinton Square on June 28, 2024. She sang, she danced,

How does a tiny, unknown country town such as Three Rivers, California, end up sponsoring an annual world-class Jazz Festival that would last 50 years?

I’m a little too young to have experienced the philanthropic musical phenomenon that was Live Aid. Organized by Bob Geldof in 1985, the iconic charity

The Roswell (New Mexico) Jazz Festival takes place throughout the town mid-October. The beloved festival draws visitors from all over the U.S. and from overseas.

The Queen’s Cartoonists Caroga Lake Music Festival Caroga Lake, NY, July 24, 2024 It has become a tradition for symphony orchestras to devote an evening

When lawyer-turned-producer of jazz recordings and events Matthew Domber succumbed to cancer in 2012, his partner and wife Rachel needed to take pause and go

This is an article I never expected to write. My interest in Scott Joplin was originally centered on his music; examination of his life came

I was eleven years old when I hit one of Life’s lotteries, and began playing the trombone. I thought it might be fun. Because of

This Jazz Age tale takes you from the streets of South Philly and the Boardwalk of Atlantic City to the nightclubs, vaudeville palaces, pool halls,

I’ve been attending jazz parties and festivals for twenty years, and each one has its own character. So to call one “the best” would be

Over the five fascinating years I’ve been interviewing jazz musicians, a curious trend has emerged. It has interested, confounded and occasionally annoyed me—the last probably

If you never heard of Porter Brown and only skimmed the broad strokes of his biography, he might seem like an obscure sideman whose life

Fumi Tomita is Associate Professor of Jazz Pedagogy and Performance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of The Jazz Rhythm Section:

I could be the wrong person to report on a ragtime festival. My first piano hero was Teddy Wilson, so the crowd at the Scott