Laughing Man
At the time of his death, in 1961, Moss Hart was one of Broadway's benevolent mandarins—admired, ubiquitous, well liked, and known far beyond Times Square, thanks to his movie scripts and television...
View ArticleStride and Swing
Glenn Miller and Fats Waller were born in the same year, 1904, and died on the same date, December 15th. In 1943, returning from a tour of the West Coast, Waller died of pneumonia at the age of...
View ArticleAutumn in New York
In mid-May, Hank Jones, slim and dapper, accepted a hand-up to the stage at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola and approached the piano with regal but nimble bearing. His first chords, close and luminous, were...
View ArticleBack to Bossa
Rosa Passos is often described as the heir to, or female equivalent of, João Gilberto, which is a way of saying that she is a distinguished interpreter of bossa nova at a time when gifted young...
View ArticleSomething Else
Avid expectation invariably precedes a concert by Ornette Coleman, the revolutionary alto saxophonist, composer, and sometime trumpeter and violinist. But the revivalist fervor that accompanied his...
View ArticleReluctant Diva
In a world of niche audiences, the singer who refuses to go gently into a particular niche and stay there is at best a challenge and at worst a double agent. Cassandra Wilson, the willfully original...
View ArticleGuitar Hero
The fearless and adaptable guitarist Bill Frisell, whose varied endeavors have drawn him into free-form extemporizations, symphonic collaborations, hard and soft rock, country, and accompaniments for...
View ArticleA Passage to India
Jazz musicians have two fundamental goals: creating music that keeps listeners wondering what’s next, and finding a novel context within which to explore old truths. (There are no new truths.) Whenever...
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