My thoughts and writings on jazz and the world around it.
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Jun 08, 2026 Lydia Liebman has sent a mass email with the information that the singular guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer transitioned on June 3. Lydia attached an obituary from the Ulmer family, which I’ve pasted below. It’s followed by a … Continue reading →
This brief but informative oral history of Buddy DeFranco, who brought the language of bebop to clarinet expression during the 1940s, and made a series of excellent combo albums with during the first half of the 1950s with Kenny Drew … Continue reading →
The text contained herein comes from a series of oral history-ish interviews I did in 1976 and 1977, primarily with AACM musicians, for broadcast on the University of Chicago’s flagship station, WHPK. I was 21 at the time. I intended … Continue reading →
If you’ve read my work, you’ll know that my contributions to jazz scholarship, such as they are, have transpired outside the academy, in the context of my work as a freelance jazz journalist, for 26 years programming jazz and jazz-adjacent/creative … Continue reading →
No master of hardcore jazz expression — not Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea or Keith Jarrett, not Pat Metheny or John McLaughlin, not Wynton or Branford Marsalis, not Joshua Redman or Brad Mehldau, not even Harry Connick, Jr. — boasts a … Continue reading →
Social media is chock-a-block with testimonies and appreciations for Jim McNeely, a great pianist, a brilliant composer and arranger whose ideas influenced several generations, but also a gifted educator and treasured mentor. Go to these thorough interviews by Ethan Iverson … Continue reading →
In 2016, DownBeat gave me the wonderful opportunity to spend almost a week in Xalapa, Mexico, covering a wonderful festival curated by the young saxophonist curated and organized by alto saxophonist Arturo Caraza Orozco, then 30, who taught locally at … Continue reading →
My reaction? Well, it’s very interesting. Very fine musicians. A nice concept. Nice new concept, a way to move the music along from the way it was some years back. I like it. [Any idea who was playing the tenor?] … Continue reading →
TP: Nancy King is not too often heard in the NYC area. KING: No. It’s taken 40 years really for me to get here, and actually be doing…in a big… I’ve been in shows here. About four or five years … Continue reading →
Out of Africa For his latest album, Lionel Loueke takes on the subject of 21st-century migration and reckons with his own winding artistic path By Ted Panken “You don’t just choose to get on a boat because you want to … Continue reading →
