jon garelick

Jon Garelick is associate arts editor of the Boston Phoenix, where he has been on staff since becoming music editor in 1990. Jon writes the column “Giant Steps” -- which is mostly about jazz -- as well as pieces about TV, art, theater, and other subjects. He has also written for the New York Times and New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Jazziz, the Boston Globe, and other publications. He has won two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards -- in 1993 and 2003 -- for his writing about music.

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Latest Articles

Live and on record

Darius Jones, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Ben Goldberg’s Go Home
To call Darius Jones’s music avant-garde seems almost beside the point. In its way, it’s older than old — it’s ancient.
By JON GARELICK | November 04, 2009

Henry Threadgill Zooid | This Brings Us To, Volume 1

Pi (2009)
Henry Threadgill has been reinventing his language — and by extension the jazz language — for at least 30 years, beginning with the trio Air in the 1970s.
By JON GARELICK | October 28, 2009

Slow hand

Jeremy Udden’s rocky jazz path
In his Village Voice review of Jeremy Udden’s Plainville (Fresh Sound New Talent), Jim Macnie recalled how a friend of his tried to file it as “jazz for Wilco fans.” As Macnie explained, that’s not the whole story with Udden or Plainville , but it’s not a bad starting point.
By JON GARELICK | October 21, 2009

Slow hand

Old school, new school

Amanda Carr and Gretchen Parlato do it their way
If fans plan shrewdly next Thursday (October 15), they can hear jazz singing at its best in two completely different styles.
By JON GARELICK | October 08, 2009

Coming home

Terri Lyne Carrington gives the BeanTown Jazz Fest the blues
Terri Lyne Carrington gives the BeanTown Jazz Fest the blues
By JON GARELICK | September 25, 2009

No new age

Earthsound is for real
Yes, this Boston jazz trio incorporates the sounds of seals, tree frogs, and crickets. Yes, one of them is a working ecologist. Here's why you shouldn't hold that against them.
By JON GARELICK | September 25, 2009

No new age

Teachers and students

NEC and Berklee set the jazz stage
Several of this fall's promising jazz performances are clustered around the week of October 18. That marks the 40th-anniversary celebration of the jazz-studies program at New England Conservatory, which, created by Gunther Schuller, established NEC as one of the international twin beacons of jazz education in Boston along with Berklee College of Music.
By JON GARELICK | September 14, 2009

More than guitar

Julian Lage's talent isn't just in his fingers
"I like using songs to change the environment — to get the listener's ear to be a little skewed."
By JON GARELICK | September 08, 2009

No translation necessary

Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, live at the M FA, September 26, 2009
Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys — named for their home town in southwest Louisiana — play music for dancing.
By JON GARELICK | August 31, 2009

Luis Bonilla | I Talking Now

NJCO/Planet Arts (2009)
Sometimes even the fanciest jazz virtuosity can sound routine, if for no other reason than that we've heard it all before.
By JON GARELICK | September 02, 2009

Street rhythm

Florencia Gonzalez gets ugly . Plus, Dave Holland is sitting pretty.
In the city where Florencia Gonzalez grew up — the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo — every neighborhood has its own candombe group. These are drum outfits that might meet on a Sunday afternoon, a Wednesday night, or particular holidays, depending on neighborhood tradition.
By JON GARELICK | August 25, 2009

Covering the bottom end - and the bottom line

Newport Jazz comes back with a bang
The biggest news made by the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals the past two weekends was that they happened at all.
By JON GARELICK | August 14, 2009

Jeremy Udden | Plainville

Fresh Sound New Talent (2009)
Saxophonist and composer Udden (formerly of NEC and the Either/Orchestra) here dives deeper into the jazz-pop connections he began to explore in his 2006 debut as a leader, Torchsongs .
By JON GARELICK | July 29, 2009

Interview: Steve Swallow on the Gary Burton Quartet

An interview with Steve Swallow
DO YOU REMEMBER EXACTLY HOW YOU GUYS FIRST GOT TOGETHER? I have a memory. I tend to distrust them, but my recollection is that I met Gary when he called me up and asked me if I would consider playing in Stan Getz's band, which he was already in.
By JON GARELICK | June 30, 2009

Meet the Beatles!

The Gary Burton Quartet remembers its roots
Swallow says that when he first picked up an electric bass, "My immediate impression was: 'Oh, shit! I'm in deep trouble here!' "
By JON GARELICK | June 17, 2009

Mixed messages

3play+ do what they wanna; Melody Gardot follows her instincts
Given the sound of its first track (which is also the title of the album), you'd have every reason to think that 3play+'s debut CD is about to plunge you into Bill Frisell–style Americana.
By JON GARELICK | June 02, 2009

Making it right

New Orleans drops the guns and dances
Whatever increments of recovery New Orleans has made since Hurricane Katrina, in many ways the city never changes. The only shocker was a lower-left-hand piece, "Crime is down sharply in N.O."
By JON GARELICK | May 05, 2009

Museum pieces and other pieces

Jazz Week returns, the Jazz Hall of Fame inducts, Ron Gill says bye
It's Jazz Week time again — that time when the Boston jazz community looks to expand its minority-appeal music to a larger public.
By JON GARELICK | April 21, 2009

Modern vintage

Lake Street Dive and Miss Tess go their own ways
Boston bands Lake Street Dive and Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade are different, but with a lot in common.
By JON GARELICK | April 08, 2009

DIY and more

Regattabar, Scullers, Creative Nation Music's fifth-anniversary celebration and more
Jazz acts up
By JON GARELICK | March 30, 2009

Streaming

Bad Touch's Magic flow; plus Patricia Barber
It's standard operating procedure these days for young jazz bands to mix the free and the formal.
By JON GARELICK | February 27, 2009

David Fiuczynski | KiF Express

Fuzelicious Morsels (2009)
This latest album from Screaming Headless Torsos guitarist David Fiuczynski's KiF doesn't worry about subtlety.
By JON GARELICK | February 03, 2009

Review: Gilfema + 2

ObliqSound (2009)
With rising jazz-guitar star Lionel Loueke in the mix, Gilfema are shaping up to be a jazz supergroup.
By JON GARELICK | January 06, 2009

Fully loaded

Joshua Redman, Cassandra Wilson, Lionel Loueke, and more
One of the most hotly anticipated concerts of the season will be JOSHUA REDMAN's "Double Trio" concert at Berklee on January 22.
By JON GARELICK | January 05, 2009

Year in Books: Word plays

Of werewolves and wastelands
Here, listed alphabetically by author, are 10 of the best works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that the Phoenix wrote about in 2008.
By JON GARELICK | December 22, 2008

Fourth-quarter earnings

Haden, Hunter, Rollins, Mela, Bley, and e.s.t.
Times a-wastin' on 2008, so before it's too late, here's a handful of discs that have caught my ear over the past few months.
By JON GARELICK | December 17, 2008

Alone together

Wayne Shorter Quartet, Berklee Performance Center, December 3, 2008
How can a jazz band play no swing rhythms, no grooves, and, really, no songs, and hold 1200 people rapt for an hour and 25 minutes, with virtually no breaks in the music?
By JON GARELICK | December 05, 2008

Mixed grill

Scarecrow Mobius, Monique, and Morley
Dave Bryant stood among the folding chairs in the audience before Scarecrow Mobius's gig at Outpost 186 a week ago Monday night, looked at his two-deck keyboard rig, and mused, "Not pretty, but I guess it will do. I had more room at rehearsal."
By JON GARELICK | December 01, 2008

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[FILM] Python-A-Thon

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