Cymbal-Head Why did Louis Armstrong's standing in the jazz scene plummet during his "Hello Dolly" era, as if he h...

Oy. Why do jazz writers love prodigies so? Can this be a deeply-seated musical inferiority complex rearing its ugly head? "We stole o...

-Those who care that Dolphy plays in/out of tune and those who don't. -Those who think a player from a given city has a "sound...

My last post bemoaned the disappearance of local places to buy horns. Another aspect of moving instrumental sales online was the demise of ...

One measure of the way things have been going for the jazz underclasses and the working poor in general over the last 20 years is to look ...

Summer always seems to take away the elderly and this one decided it wanted Bill Dixon. I can't think of much more beyond that right now...

Some jazz blogs are straight ahead educational: "Download transcribed solos by Brownie, K.D. Miles, etc." God bless these people. ...

No one seems happy about the fact that consciousness-altering substances have been at the center of American popular music for the past 100...

In 2008, the Rex Stewart/Jabbo Smith Meme and Trope Institute undertook a multiple year study of the increasingly distant proxemics, gestur...

Reading about the impending demise of the JazzBaltica festival, and noting the European allusion in Matt's recent posting, it struck ...

The "Best Of" List Industry continues to grind out the sausages. Downbeat Magazine's recent listing of the 25 Favorite Big Ba...

Jeff Schlanger.  Music Witness. 1. How has the Vision Festival helped over the years to cohere the core community of artists through good...

An Oscar Wilde quote worth knowing: “There are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting what one wants. The other is getting it.” ...

In looking at Coltrane's 1961 recording Ole, one sees Eric Dolphy listed as "George Lane." I guess he was under contract with...

Thanks to M. Chalfen for his Wilbur Sweatman , W.C. Handy and Victor Military Band citations (see comments at "Twelve Bars That Di...