Jazz Chronicles

First, an embarrassing admission: I didn't know trumpeter/composer Kenny Wheeler was a fellow Canadian until about 1979. In my naiveté, ...

If you grew up listening to music in the 1960s, you believed in the magic that could come only from a recording studio. Despite the dominanc...

Never one to resist the latest web trend, especially when the days are long and slow, I'll throw in my bids for the recordings that have...

Whenever the topic of Keith Jarrett comes up between me and my wife—not an unusual occurrence, given how he is one of the few jazz artists w...

Few artists who attract rabid fans have bifurcated careers that divide those followers like John Coltrane. Even his longtime employer, Miles...

Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette: Somewhere (ECM) – The pianist’s so-called Standards Trio marked its 30th anniversary with a l...

"Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive." Those words are a touchstone phrase of Bruce Springsteen's heroic "This Hard Land...

I'm currently listening, filled with emotion, to a 17-hour live radio tribute to drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson on WKCR-FM. I had just a...

Nineteen seventy-two was a great year for live albums by three of the most musical rock bands of the time. The Allman Brothers Band releas...

Tonight, in my city—Ottawa—a local group of improvisers are getting together to play something called 'Whose Solo Is It Anyway.' C...

The great pianist Cedar Walton died today at the age of 79. One of the last remaining members of the generation of musicians who developed t...

A couple of years ago, vibraphonist Peter Appleyard released an album of terrific material he recorded with...

It doesn't get much better than catching two of my favourite young musicians in one of my favourite venues, especially when a cold rain ...

It's akin to the so-called 'fog of war.' When proponents dig in on two sides of a debate, some key facts get lost. It foll...