Features

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

I’ve attended the Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition & Festival many times both in the audience and from backstage, and always enjoyed the

Odell Rand was born in 1905 in New Orleans; he died on 22 June 1960 in Chicago, Ill. Robert Stendhal recalls: “I saw Odell Rand

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