Jazz Times

By Chris J. Walker “You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone,” Bob Dylan stated profoundly in 1963. Throughout its unrivaled 65-year history, the Monterey Jazz Festival has demonstrated an uncanny ability to keep swimming (figuratively): t…

By Client Services Composer and arranger Dave Slonaker believes that we are in a new Golden Age of creativity for big bands and large ensemble jazz, and considering the success of his debut recording, INTRADA (2013), he is probably right. Not only was …

By Client Services Over the course of three decades as a professional performer, Kaeshammer has developed a style that weaves threads of classical, jazz, blues, boogie-woogie, stride, and piano pop into a signature sound. Kaeshammer has been nominated …

By Client Services “Sultry-voiced, Chicago-based vocalist Tracye Eileen spreads a bluesy blanket over what are essentially straight-ahead renditions. She has excellent range and is suitably emotive when required. She gets a good head start thanks to a …

By JazzTimes Penn Live Arts—a performing arts presenter at the University of Pennsylvania—has organized a festival in tribute to Alice and John Coltrane to be held October 14-23 in Philadelphia. “Alice & John: A Coltrane Festival” honors the musical le…

By Michael J. West Pharoah Sanders at the 2020 Detroit Jazz Festival (photo courtesy of Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation)Pharoah Sanders, a pioneering tenor saxophonist and composer who became synonymous with the spiritual jazz aesthetic, died Septembe…

By Michael J. West When Enrico Rava recorded The Song Is You (ECM), his new album of duets with pianist Fred Hersch, in Lugano, Switzerland, he was just out of the hospital. “I had a very heavy operation. It was a cancer of the lung,” the 83-year-old t…

By JazzTimes This year’s Jazz @ the Point Festival, which South Jersey Jazz Society presents each year in Somers Point, New Jersey, will feature a Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Pat Martino. Taking place November 3-6, close to the first annivers…

By Shaun Brady Kalia Vandever (photo: Alex Joseph) The title of trombonist/composer Kalia Vandever’s second release, Regrowth (New Amsterdam), follows logically from the botanical metaphor of her 2019 debut, In Bloom. The new album certainly lives up t…

By JazzTimes To many readers of a certain age, it may seem unbelievable, but it’s true: Ten-time Grammy Award-winning vocal quartet the Manhattan Transfer is turning 50 this year—on October 1, to be exact. Cheryl Bentyne, Janis Siegel, Alan Paul, and T…