The Professor Is IN

Okay, folks—this mess has gone on long enough. The festivals are dropping like flies and I, along with all the other musicians in the scene,

Okay folks, we’re hitting three months of lockdown. And it seems like there’ll be no live music for some time now, at least not here

Here we are folks—for most of us, it’s just another day in self-quarantine. How long has it been already? A month, a week, two years?

When you see a jazz musician up on stage, baring their heart and soul to their audience, you’re witnessing something bordering the miraculous. The true

At some point, you may have heard some jazz educator rabbit on to a group of students with a speech like, “jazz is a group

Okay folks, let’s talk about sex. We may as well do so…it’s on our minds all the time anyway (just ask Freud). Most of us

We, in the jazz community, can sometimes get lonely barricaded in our practice rooms or in green rooms. I know it can be intimidating to

I’ve heard this speech many times since moving to New York…a charitable request to the audience, and somewhat of a plea on behalf of the

Do you guys know that old joke: How do end up with a million dollars in the music business?… Start with 2 million and open

Halloween is once again upon us. Being from Australia and not celebrating this holiday as a youngster, I’ve found this to be a peculiar American

Hi folks. I’ve been writing this regular column for a few years now, a pursuit that I’ve very much enjoyed. However, recently I received a

Jazz musicians are highly trained professionals, just as in any other skilled professional field. Whilst on stage, it may appear to the causal observer that

Performing live cuts to the essence of what we do as jazz musicians. We love performing in intimate settings (because jazz is traditionally acoustic music)

With the relatively recent advent of formal education in jazz, coupled with the endless resources provided by the internet, I am excited and heartened by

I was in Australia a few weeks back, and I’m not sure how much it made the news here in the US, but a high

There’s nothing more romantic than a bunch of musicians out on the street playing New Orleans jazz. Young ragamuffins who’ve shunned society’s norms, and even

There is a long-standing battle between modern jazz fans and traditional jazz fans. It seems that the trad fans loathe modern jazz, and the modern

Folks, I’ve been in this music business long enough to see that the world is changing. It’s a fast paced, tough market out there in

Folks, I’m a fairly private person. By now, most of you regular readers may have noticed that my monthly articles are somewhat cheeky observations of

I often recall a highlight from one of my first adventures as a young man, visiting the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania

I’m sure the good readers of The Syncopated Times are well aware by now that jazz musicians are finely tuned creative artists. But are you

A common question that jazz musicians get asked is: do you still practice? And if so, then what do you practice? In jazz, don’t you

Jon Challoner, the trumpet player in my band, told me he recently cleaned out his trumpet, and what came out was “ungodly.” And as any