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
I’m not much of a festival-goer, to be honest. I find myself getting a bit bored after two days of non-stop music and two nights
Like most pianists who have devoted their lives to ragtime and early jazz, they remember the precise moment—and maybe even the exact work—when they first
Olli Soikkeli is from a family of nonmusicians. His parents, however, tried to interest his two older brothers in playing some instruments, but the only
There’s probably no better memorial to the legacy of legendary producer Michael Cuscuna than the release, expected in June, of a seven-CD set titled Classic
“Mommy, the Bix Beiderbecke jazz festival is coming up soon. . . can we go, please?” I pleaded with my fingers crossed. I had heard
In recent years, the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has reentered the public consciousness. Depending on who is telling the story, the work is
Just a few weeks before his death at age 75, Willis Conover had still been doing what he had done for more than four decades—spreading
There is only one seven-piece New Orleans-style jazz band with a steady gig in New York City—the High Society New Orleans Jazz Band, co-led by
I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway: the true joy of vinyl is not so much having some superlative sonic
NOTE: This is an edited excerpt of the interview I did with Steve Provizer after reading his new book, As Long As They Can Blow:
NASA hasn’t perfected the robot that would be the ideal reviewer for a jazz festival like the Jazz Bash by the Bay in Monterey, California,
1924 found America deep in the Jazz Age with speakeasies, bootleggers, and hot jazz as the soundtrack. Calvin Coolidge was president (winning re-election in November),
Hal Smith: Well, Brother Kevin…It seems like forever since we “talked shop” for an article in The Syncopated Times. Before another year slips away, what
YouTube is just full of surprises, isn’t it? For instance, today I learned that there’s a channel called Electro Swing Thing, which recently uploaded a
Traditional jazz and ragtime are back in St. Louis these days and as vibrant and joyful as in the days when the Goldenrod Showboat graced
Multi-keyboardist Dick Hyman, born March 8, 1927, will turn 97 years old this month. With a prolific career behind him he’s no longer performing publicly,
From the 1920s to the 1940s my great uncle Harry Berman had a multifaceted career as a performer on stage, screen, records, and radio. His
The “Roaring Twenties” were off to a rousing start by late 1920. Musically, if not in other ways as well, the contributions of African Americans
An Interview with, and pièce de théâtre about Matthew de Lacey Davidson by Jeff Barnhart (with assistance from the little garden gnome down the street
Who knew a World War could be so entertaining? As the 1940s got underway, the Swing Era in music was, shall we say, in full
