The Jazz for Obama talent pool fundraising for the re-election of the President at Symphony Space  (2537 Broadway, NYC) tonight is stellar. Roy Haynes, Joe Lovano, Brad Mehldau, Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Barron, Jim Hall, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ravi Coltrane, Arturo O’Farrill, Kenny Garrett, Geri Allen, Jeff ‘Tain” Watts, Christian McBride, Gretchen Partlato, Claudio […]

The new list of MacArthur fellows, just released, features not one musician from the world of jazz among the 23 distinguished Americans who will receive $100,000 a year for five years. Two musicians are named among the fellows: Claire Chase, flutist and founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and Chris Thile, mandolinist of Nickle Creek and […]

Hear keyboardist-composer Muhal Richard Abrams play solo and leading a drummerless quartet tonight, 9/21/2012, at 8 pm at the Community Church or New York (40 E. 35th, between Madison and Park Ave.). It’s the first concert of the season produced by the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), the 47-year-old organization which he co-founded […]

I didn’t know Terry Riley could perform A Rainbow in Curved Air live, as he did last Friday with his guitarist son Gyan at the Skirbal Center for the Performing Arts on NYU’s campus, as part of an appearance by the Joshua Light Show. But yes he can, and masterfully — as if he just thought it […]

Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy, at age 75 as wild a guitar pyrotechnician as lives today, and the British dinosaur rockers Led Zeppelin, whose guitarist Jimmy Page stands in Guy’s shadow, are being celebrated with Kennedy Center Honors, to be presented at a program at the Kennedy Center on Dec. 2. Remind me again why we’re […]

Low ad revenue for CityArts-New York has brought an end to the twice-monthly column on jazz and related music I’ve written since its first issue in March 2009. Indeed, CityArts, originally trumpeted as “New York’s review of culture”  and under film critic Armond White’s editorship heralded as “Bringing thinking back to the arts,” has been […]

Being in Chicago during the week pre-Labor Day for the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)-produced, Jazz Institute of Chi-programmed Jazz Festival has been my annual habit — a good one. My hometown continues to reward broad and deep musical listening: A far-South Side “send-off” for newly departed NEA Jazz Master saxophonist […]

The immortal Charlie Parker — the dazzling alto saxophonist who helped raise jazz to an abstract art form and embodied “hip” as a person experienced, perceptive, hedonistic, aware of the contradictions — would have dug the 20th anniversary Charlie Parker Jazz Festival held in Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem, Manhattan, New York City yesterday. His old buddy […]

Away for a week, upon my return I’m looking at 30 new releases, a surprising number for late August. Of course they’ve been pouring in all summer — this has been an extraordinary season for the issue of ambitious new projects by young artists and veterans both. Here are some immediate reactions to a handful. […]

My new CityArts-New York column covers some of what went down at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival. With three stages running staggered but near-simultaneous performances, there was much too much happening to hear it all (I’ve been listening to some of what I missed, like Bill Frisell’s modern string band tribute to John Lennon, at […]

The NYC Charlie Parker Jazz Festival began 20 years ago and returns starting Aug. 17 with a week of activities leading up to free concerts Aug. 24 – 36 in Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem, and Tompkins Square Park, East Village. I will present headliner Roy Haynes with his “Drummer of the Year” Award from the Jazz Journalists […]

The 58th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival starts tonight (Friday, 8/3) in Rhode Island, and thanks to producer George Wein, there’s a press bus going that I’ll be on. But you don’t have to go to Newport for the jazz fest experience — small towns as well as large ones throughout America (and beyond) […]

AJ Silver is a cowboy from The Bronx, and his lasso act opening “Travesties of 2012,” a vaudeville cavalcade curated by Trav SD at the New York Music Theatre Festival brought out the grinning 3rd grader in me. Not a bad thing — it’s quite the pleasure to see a 14 foot hank of rope […]