I play trumpet in  The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band-  a group that plays (mostly) a mix of newer and older styles ...

Who actually says it on the recording is  not a settled matter , but Jazz people know the expression from a recording of Dipper Mouth Blues:...

Don't let the movie "The Sting" fool you. Con artist are dirtbags who should be pulled apart by wild boars. An elderly pers...

Recently, a comment was posted in response to my piece about Abbey Lincoln  and her intense song  Throw it Away . " I'd like to sin...

I'm seeing fewer and fewer comments on this blog and on all the jazz blogs I go to. Brilliant Corners continues to get about the same nu...

The attention that used to be paid to jazz on such programs as "The Sound of Jazz," "Frankly Jazz,""The Subject i...

This speaks for itself :  Meredith Attwell Baker, one of the two Republican Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, plans to...

Just want to note the terrific 1964  D.A. Pennebaker  film of the  Dave Lambert  Singers auditioning for RCA. Lambert was a very early prac...

In Part I (see below), I vented about what I think is Jazzfest's ill-advised turn toward more BIG NAMES. In the spirit of generous top-t...

The New Orleans jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazzfest) is both blessed and accursed. It brings out both the Jazz Curmudgeon in me and the Jaz...

I wrote this article about Walter Polite (pronounced Po-leet) for the Christian Science Monitor in 1997 and Walter died soon after. I rep...

" Last year at the beginning of the playoffs, I posted my take on the C's as jazz musicians. The only change in this year's li...

Last summer, inspired by the alliance between Sony and the Miles Davis estate which offered a mouthpiece replica, t-shirts and other fascina...

Glad to see someone's finally designing a Chet Baker watch . If anyone says "be on time" to me, it's Chet. Not to be ou...

This is a re-written version of a post from last April, which I'm reprising as a pre-quel to a post later this week about the Occupy mo...

Robin Kelley's massive bio  Monk  has been widely reviewed and justifiably praised. Monk's musical history is exhaustively researche...

Another in the series of the great Woody Shaw, playing "Bemsha Swing," recorded by me on 8.21.85 at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge...

There we are, in a nutshell. On a throne, with our feet in a pile of shit. The vistas of unremitting destruction shake me to the core and ...

You know the story: A guy is crawling on the ground looking for something under a lamp post. His friend comes up and says "Oh, is that ...

Hollywood movies suck. Not only that, going to a multiplex theatre is one of the most dispiriting, depressing and irritating experiences ima...

This past weekend, the motley musical crowd I play with- The Second Line Social Aid Pleasure Society Brass Band (SLSAPS) - played at a ral...