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Ten best bets at the Newport Jazz Festival

High notes
The Newport Jazz Festival has been on a roll these last few years, blending the commercial clout of big names with the creative cred of adventurous newcomers.

By: JIM MACNIE | August 01, 2012

Pat Metheny's Unity Band

All is One
Pat Metheny's career has in a sense been defined by his omnivorous curiosity.

By: JON GARELICK | July 27, 2012

Jazz death at ’GBH

Gone, gone, gone
"I don't know if we made a difference, but we had a hell of time," said Ken Field at the "WGBH Jazz Funeral" last week. True dat, Ken.

By: JON GARELICK | July 12, 2012

Tom Wetmore plays his band

Composer’s desire
Tom Wetmore's new The Desired Effect (Crosstown) is both tantalizingly familiar and utterly strange.

By: JON GARELICK | July 10, 2012

Duke Robillard and Surface to Air work the tradition

Easy listening
It all comes from somewhere.

By: JON GARELICK | June 26, 2012

Theo Bleckmann takes on Kate Bush

Role playing
It's easy to inflate an artist's reputation with words like "visionary," but in the case of Theo Bleckmann, it's apt.

By: JON GARELICK | June 11, 2012

Mary Halvorson's enchanted wood; Plus, Ben Powell's new CD

Wild things
When guitarist Mary Halvorson began taking lessons with Joe Morris as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, she was excited about the prospect of playing duos with one of her guitar heroes.

By: JON GARELICK | May 31, 2012

The Fringe at 40

Sophisticated primitives
"I'm feeling a little light-headed," George Garzone told the audience last Saturday at the Boston Conservatory Theater, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to his brow.

By: JON GARELICK | May 15, 2012

The 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

New Orleans Notes
New Orleans Notes

By: JON GARELICK | May 04, 2012

Esperanza Spalding’s “Society”

Charmed agenda
The first time I was knocked out by Esperanza Spalding, she wasn't even playing — she was talking.

By: JON GARELICK | April 18, 2012

Walt Whitman via Fred Hersch

A new "Song of Myself"
The pianist and composer Fred Hersch first encountered the poetry of Walt Whitman as a student at New England Conservatory in 1976.

By: JON GARELICK | April 19, 2012

Jazz pianist and composer Dan Tepfer would take on The Goldberg Variations

Tepfer’s Bach
Jazz and Bach have always made good company.

By: JON GARELICK | April 19, 2012

Kate McGarry makes a feminist move on the standards songbook

In her own time
On a first listen to Kate McGarry's new Girl Talk (Palmetto), you might not suspect any special agenda — this is simply the kind of original, heartfelt treatment of a well-chosen mix of songs that the singer has led us to expect in her half dozen releases over the past decade. But listen again.

By: JON GARELICK | April 10, 2012