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The old jazz tune, “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal, You” is intended to be a funny song about marital infidelity. The cuckold,

If there is any concern among jazz enthusiasts that big band swing is in danger of dying out among the younger generations of musicians, the

In the March 2025 issue of The Syncopated Times, I wrote that Emmett Hardy, Leon Roppolo, and Lou Black honed their musical skills during the

Before films began to talk, in the late 1920s, live musicians delivered the soundtracks for silent films. This was sometimes a single pianist or organist,

I met a good friend for coffee the other day. I know she’s a good friend, because she turned up with a carrier bag full

Around the time Louis Armstrong moved from a big band to a small-group setting in 1947, grumblings were being heard. At first, it came from

Part One of this discussion of Morey Feld appeared in our March 2024 issue, and Part Two was published in May 2024. Hal Smith: Brother

If you ask any Englishman (or woman): “Have you heard of a town called Diss?” they will almost certainly say “no.” Even if you asked

The joy of digging through thrift store vinyl crates is the prospect of discovering new arrangements, new songs, even new bands or composers which had

Two steamboat jazz bands were the talk of the Mississippi River in 1920. One became famous. The other remains obscure. The famous band, of course,

His guitar mastery made him a top first-call artist in the New York recording scene for decades. His quiet and friendly manner made one club

Here are two points of view expressed by poets of unequal stature: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter . . .

Sometimes it’s impossible to predict how a risk could pay off, or if a gamble is worth taking. Fortunately this year the unknown was underlined

“Behind every great man, there is a great woman.” How many biographical articles have opened with that trite old aphorism? It acknowledges—quite rightly—that many of

This is not a time to bury the lead. Myself and my octogenarian roommates (Mother and Cat) are all safe. We are not currently in

The Japanese honor their most distinguished, and usually aged, artists with the title “Living National Treasure.” Bassist Bill Crow well deserves such a designation, and

I’m not an economist, but the math doesn’t add up here: for all the supposed freedoms US citizens are promised, there are equal excuses as

The lights go down in Broadway’s Studio 54. And the theater is filled with the electrifying first notes of “West End Blues.” We’re hearing the

Until very recently, I thought that the Hot Club de France was simply the name of the band led by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli

James Monroe Iglehart’s career has been varied and high profile. On Broadway, he’s known for starring in Aladdin (Genie), Spamalot (King Arthur), Hamilton (Marquis de

I lived in Honolulu in the early 1970s. So did the great trombonist Trummy Young, a name I knew well from his work with many