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Jazz

Ed Reed sings it his way

Life stories
It's almost cliché to describe the sound of a veteran jazz singer as "lived in."

By: JON GARELICK | January 10, 2012

Old favorites and debuts make the scene

Rich choices
We have to wait for spring to see Charlie Haden's Quartet West and the Joshua Redman/Brad Mehldau duo, but there are still plenty of ways to keep an eye and ear on jazz in the winter months.

By: JON GARELICK | December 30, 2011

10 Boston jazz acts that blew through the roof in 2011

Mystics and monsters
Here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite things from among the people, CDs, and performances I wrote about this year.

By: JON GARELICK | December 21, 2011

A jazz-piano master clears his own path

Iyer calling
When I got the pianist and composer Vijay Iyer on the phone to talk about his upcoming Celebrity Series double-bill with the Miguel Zenón Quartet, I meant to talk to him about his serene and absorbing new album Tirtha (ACT), with the tabla player Nitin Mitta and guitarist Prasanna.

By: JON GARELICK | December 07, 2011

Confessin' the blues ... and a whole lot more

Agachiko
Gabrielle Agachiko's resume is impressive by any standards — studied at Juilliard, played in musical theater off-Broadway as well as with a touring production of Godspell, sang jazz with both Charlie Watts and Steve Lacy.

By: JON GARELICK | November 22, 2011

Yoko Miwa's life cycles

ID check
When she was a 16-year-old piano student in her hometown of Kobe, Japan, Yoko Miwa decided it was time to see if she had what it takes.

By: JON GARELICK | November 09, 2011

More jazz to catch live

Mark your calendars
Here are just a few upcoming jazz events that should be on your calendar.

By: JON GARELICK | October 27, 2011

Daniel Rosenthal steps out; plus, Sanchez and Blanchard do ''Chano y Dizzy''

Streaming
Trumpeter Daniel Rosenthal's Lines (American Melody) is one of those little gems of an album that comes along with regularity from Boston's indie-jazz scene.

By: JON GARELICK | October 27, 2011

The Ghost Train Orchestra makes a whistle stop

Drink up!
If part of what's grabbed you about HBO's Boardwalk Empire is the music, then you owe it to yourself to get over to the Regattabar on October 18 to catch Brian Carpenter's Ghost Train Orchestra.

By: JON GARELICK | October 12, 2011

Dead Cat Bounce's many meanings

Wordless stories
It's never easy to say what a piece of instrumental music "means." So composers give us titles and program notes and, when they get desperate, lyrics.

By: JON GARELICK | September 28, 2011

A new trio hits the Coolidge

Introducing
Soloff, now 67, has a long list of impressive credits that includes the Carla Bley Band, the Carnegie Hall Big Band, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, a passel of Latin jazz bands (including Machito's), seminal jazz-rock outfit Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and a long association with the man he considers his mentor, composer/arranger Gil Evans.

By: JON GARELICK | September 14, 2011

The top 10 jazz events in town this fall

Starting with the Beantown Jazz Festival, ensembles large and small mix it up
As usual, there's too much to choose from. Here are some highlights.

By: JON GARELICK | September 14, 2011

Gerry Beaudoin 'returns' with Harry Allen

History lessons
My first encounter with guitarist Gerry Beaudoin was as a fellow judge at a long-ago battle of the blues bands at Harpers Ferry. The night had been kind of a slog, and after three bands, Beaudoin — who'd been withholding comment all night looked at me and said, "I don't get it, don't these guys listen to any blues records?"

By: JON GARELICK | September 06, 2011

Paul Lieberman's Brazilian accent

Bilingual
How did a middle-class Jewish kid from New Jersey become a first-call session musician in Rio de Janeiro?

By: JON GARELICK | August 22, 2011

Newport Jazz Festival turns left

Now nonprofit, the event combines artistic and commercial viability
At this year's edition, there was very little you couldn't call jazz — maybe Afropop star Angelique Kidjo or, if you were being especially churlish, New Orleans trombonist and trumpeter Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, with his funk-heavy set.

By: JON GARELICK | August 10, 2011

James Farm take jazz into songs

Plus: A Newport Jazz Fest sampler
Typical of the festival's — and jazz's — rich crosscurrents these days is the collective quartet James Farm. This is a band with unassailable jazz bona fides.

By: JON GARELICK | August 03, 2011

Amy Winehouse, 1983–2011

In Memoriam
While we all await the inevitable "Last Days of Amy Winehouse" report from Rolling Stone , let's take a breather and remember the voice. It was slow, smoky, insinuating, sweet-and-sour, and seemed to conjure a handful of jazz-and-soul divas in a syllable...

By: JON GARELICK | July 28, 2011

Dominick Farinacci's hometown arias

Hello Cleveland!
Farinacci releases the new, romantically-themed Dawn of Goodbye (E1) on July 26 and comes to the Regattabar on August 3.

By: JON GARELICK | July 20, 2011

Mark McGrain takes Plunge, music ensues

Contrapuntally speaking
Trying to find continuities in the strains of jazz history can be a dizzying, foolish, irresistible head game. Original as it is, this stuff all comes from somewhere, right?

By: JON GARELICK | June 27, 2011

The Cookers' book

A "supergroup" maintains the standard
When does a one-off gimmick turn into a "real" band? On the face of it, the Cookers, who come to Scullers next Thursday, June 16, could easily have become a gimmick that outlived its usefulness — a handful of wily veterans egged on by a couple of younger cats as a way to trade on the collective power of their names and score some gigs.

By: JON GARELICK | June 09, 2011

Plainville, James Farm, and the Infrared Band

Old and new dreams
When Antoine Batiste is looking for a guitarist, the one thing he doesn't want to hear is "white boys with bad hair playin' them cowboy keys."

By: JON GARELICK | May 26, 2011

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