Jazz Chronicles

There are only three musicians I clearly remember hearing for the first time: Charlie Parker, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Of these,...

I have a hard time even beginning to think about how important so-called alternative weekly (or alt-weekly) newspapers have been to culture ...

Don't let my silence here at JazzChronicles make you think that nothing is happening in my little world o' jazz. On the contrary, I...

Note: My longtime friend Jacques Emond, former programming director for the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, died Sunday night after suf...

Every year, jazz critic Francis Davis undertakes the mammoth task of polling more than 100 of his peers to determine the past year's bes...

Yes, I know I recently stared into the evil side of year-end top 10 lists, but I get requests. How else are my friends and relations going ...

When an artist remains creative into his or her tenth decade there is a temptation to overstate the person's importance. Longevity has a...

Dave Brubeck was an enormous influence on my early jazz listening, and—along with his sidemen Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond—probably the o...

Maybe it's human nature, but there's always a certain temptation to make things appear harder to do than they are, all in pursuit of...

My father died two weeks ago at the age of 90. He had a good life—charmed, actually, in many ways—and he was lucky to slide away from us ...

Aside from jazz, one of my favourite interests is cities and how they develop, and no city attracts my interest more than my own. I grew...

Photo by Michael Jackson Wasn't that a man? David S. Ware made a mighty sound, and was one of those musicians whose soulfulness wa...

Heading off this week for the sixth Quebec City International Jazz Festival , which always forms a nice bridge between the end of the summer...

With October upon us I suppose it's time to take a quick scan across the 2012 releases, with a view to getting some idea of how tough it...

Back in the early 1980s, liking Michael Jackson could get you hurt. At that time, I hosted a Saturday evening radio program on CKCU-FM...

Next to receiving free CDs, covering a jazz festival is likely the ideal thing that people think of when/if they consider how great it wo...

Perhaps I was too enraptured by his so-called American Quartet or too much in love with his rapturous solo inventions of the 1970s, but I ...

When a standalone restaurant closes, it's usually a highly local story. But, when that restaurant doubles as the headquarters of a city...

There are few things as thrilling in music as when musicians whose work you love form a new group and the results define the cliché of the w...

The main stage structure in Ottawa's Confederation Park—home base for the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival—has only just been disma...