Jazz Jottings

It’s a special time for festival goers when they are introduced to a band they haven’t heard before that suddenly gets everyone excited, fills the

Vince Giordano has received the New York Hot Jazz Festival’s first Lifetime Achievement Award. September also marked the fifth anniversary of Vince and his Nighthawks’

If you believe in the tried-and-true, be aware that there are eight festivals and one jazz party coming up in the next two-and-a-half months that

Jim Martinez is a man of many talents who wears many hats. He is a versatile pianist and organist, a Steinway artist, recording artist, concert

Clarinetist extraordinaire Ken Peplowski is back performing after six weeks on the DL due to a broken knuckle in his right hand suffered while on

For the past four years, Pete and Will Anderson have devoted the month of April to a cross-country tour of concert and school performances. Their

Writing about the 60th anniversary of the Queen City Jazz Band got me to wondering where they ranked among the longest continuous-performing trad jazz bands

The Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band is one of only about a half-dozen bands that can say they have been playing traditional jazz festivals for more

After 32 years of service, John Edward Haase has stepped down as Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and

The sounds of New Orleans were very much in evidence at the 28th annual Arizona Classic Jazz Festival held Nov. 2-5 at the Crowne Plaza

For the past 40 years, jazz fans have known Earl McKee as the tall rancher in the black cowboy hat from Three Rivers, California who

Wesla Whitfield Retires Posting an announcement on Facebook that his wife, vocalist Wesla Whitfield is retiring due to health issues that affect her singing, Mike

Hal Smith, whose prolific writings over the years have qualified him as a jazz historian in my book, has long admired trombonist Edward “Kid” Ory

What a Wonderful World August 16 will mark the 50th anniversary of Louis Armstrong recording “What a Wonderful World,” which became his best-loved song. The

Despite inclement weather, attendance at the 2017 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was announced as 425,000, the same as 2016, but under the record

Justin Kauflin As a child, Justin Kauflin learned classical music on the violin and piano. By the age of 6, he was performing in concerts,

Dot Time Records has reached an agreement with the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation to release four albums of previously unreleased music from the Louis Armstrong

The Musical Instrument Museum, which is rated Phoenix’s top attraction, is featuring an exhibit of inlaid guitars, which will be on display for the next

Stride pianists extraordinaire Stephanie Trick and husband Paolo Alderighi presented “A Supreme Evening of Jazz” at a scholarship benefit concert for the Sandra Day O’Connor

Pianist Bob Pilsbury celebrated his 90th birthday on Dec. 28. A founding member of the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, and for more than four

Cheryl Stephens will be remembered by longtime jazz fans as a petite gal with a big voice and a happy disposition who overcame physical adversity

The title of a Thomas Wolfe novel published in 1940 told us that “You can’t go home again” but for 25 of the past 27