Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. When pianist Bill Charlap featured Tom Harrell at a recent gig with his trio at New York’s Jazz Standard, he summarized the trumpeter’s genius as concisely as anyone could. “It is our honor and privilege,” he announced, “to share the bandstand with a man who is a …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. The long-running debate over what defines a jazz singer simply dissolves when Betty Carter’s name comes up. She transcended the entire category and took her place in the music pantheon as one of jazz’s most profound and game-changing innovators. Her impact was pervasive: not only did she …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. The quartet that saxophonist Branford Marsalis has led for the past three decades has always been a model of daring, no-apologies artistry, of ever-widening horizons and deepening collective identity. With like-minded support from pianist Joey Calderazzo and bassist Eric Revis (each with 20 years of service to …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. One of the most acclaimed trombonists of his generation, Steve Davis has been a member of some of jazz’s premiere ensembles: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Chick Corea’s Origins, the Jackie McLean Sextet, Benny Golson’s New Jazztet, the Christian McBride Big Band, and the all-star collective One …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Drummer Jack Kilby formed his band the Front Line in 2014 in New York City. It includes members from New York, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Kilby and bassist Kris Monson both grew up in northern Virginia and attended the University of Virginia where they met veteran trumpeter …
Seven years have passed since Emmet Cohen released his celebrated debut trio record. Since then, the Harlem-based rising star pianist has established himself as artfully prolific with the release of two volumes of his acclaimed Masters Legacy Series, albums featuring jazz giants Jimmy Cobb and Ron Carter, with another featuring the great Benny …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Caesar Frazier is a true keeper of the B-3 grail, assuming the mantle of the great organists such as Jimmy Smith and Brother Jack McDuff and building upon their legacy to become one of today’s finest exponents of the instrument. From his years with Lou Donaldson through …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Composing music inspired by painting dates back as far as the 12th century and, in jazz, Duke Ellington’s “Degas Suite” comes to mind along with Branford Marsalis’s “Romare Bearden Revealed.” But with his new album, “Jeremy Pelt the Artist,” trumpeter Jeremy Pelt may be the …
