Clik here to view.
Remembering Jazz Composer Horace Silver
Horace Silver was one of jazz’s most influential composers and talented pianists. He’d played with countless greats, from Sonny Rollins to Miles Davis, and led a quintet that shaped jazz as we know it....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thelonious Monk on the Moment He Became Aware of the Police
During the 1960s and 70s, legendary jazz drummer Art Taylor interviewed his fellow musicians. The interviews are collected in the 1993 book Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews, and it’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Coltrane Explored New Terrain in the Pacific Northwest
In the Seattle Weekly, Steve Griggs writes about John Coltrane’s first and only performances in Seattle, at the 225-seat Penthouse club, in 1965. Griggs provides a snapshot of the saxophonist’s life...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Story of ‘Ella and Louis,’ 60 Years Later
Tom Maxwell | Longreads | November 2016 | 7 minutes (1,807 words) Nineteen fifty-six was a defining year for American popular music. The foundations of rock and roll were solidified when Elvis Presley,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Last of the Live Reviewers: An Interview with Nate Chinen
Matthew Kassel | Longreads | August 2018 | 14 minutes (3,488 words) Jazz has changed a lot over the past 100 years or so of its existence, but it has never been as stylistically varied — or more packed...
View ArticleStill Celebrating the Greatest Day in Hip-Hop
In 1958, Esquire photographer Art Kane took one of the most famous photos in music history: 57 jazz artists gathered in front of a Harlem brownstone. The group included Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie,...
View ArticleShelved: Bill Evans’ Loose Blues
Tom Maxwell | Longreads | October 2018 | 11 minutes (2,248 words) “Loose Bloose” has a beguiling head riff. Such motifs are played at the beginning, or “head,” of a jazz or rock song. They’re...
View ArticleShelved: Jimmy Scott’s Falling In Love Is Wonderful
By 1962, Ray Charles had fully crossed over. It started with his 1959 Top 10 hit “What’d I Say,” continued with the Grammy-winning “Georgia On My Mind” and “Hit the Road, Jack,” and culminated in two...
View ArticleRemembering Singer Nancy Wilson
Listening to Nancy Wilson’s “(You Don’t Know) How Glad I Am” over a half century after she recorded it is like taking a master class in voice control and phrasing. She incorporates Eartha Kitt’s tart...
View ArticleShelved: Sonny Rollins Live at Carnegie Hall
Tom Maxwell | Longreads | February 2019 | 16 minutes (3,055 words) Sonny Rollins was busy in 1957. The tenor saxophonist was present for about sixteen recording sessions, some private, most released,...
View ArticleRemembering Ken Nordine
Language is music. A conversational voice has its own cadence and mode. Laughter can be melodic. Poems, when sung, become lyrics. Of course we all know the difference between singing and talking, but...
View ArticleRemembering João Gilberto
Music is contradictory. Highly personal expressions can become hugely popular. Tradition can be reinvented as something completely new. Understatement can often get a point across the most forcefully....
View ArticleHow Jazz Pianist Erroll Garner Fought for His Rights
Erroll Garner is not a household name, but when the jazz pianist was in his prime between the 1940s and 60s, anyone who listened to popular music knew him. On the Johnny Carson show, on the radio,...
View ArticleWonderful Things: The Kid Creole and the Coconuts Story
Michael A. Gonzales| Longreads | December 2019 | 31 minutes (6,214 words) As New York City wallowed in social and economic disarray during the early 1980s, music still ruled supreme. The boom bap of...
View ArticleMiami: A Beginning
Read an introduction to the series. Jessica Lynne | Longreads | February 2020 | 10 minutes (2,737 words) Hive is a Longreads series about women and the music that has influenced them. * * * Much has...
View ArticleLife Advice from Jazz Genius Sonny Rollins
At age 89, after 70 years as a jazz saxophonist who played with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker (to name just a few), Sonny Rollins quietly gave up playing in 2014 due to pulmonary...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Genre of Myths: A Jazz Reading List
I am a jazz devotee, the kind with shelves of jazz books and photos of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker in his home office. Because I love music so much, I want to understand where it came from, and...
View Article
