Being in Boston for grad school in the early- to mid-‘90s meant that Morphine was the local act to see. I saw them several times, and at their best, they...
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In many ways, the transformations that swept through rock music in the mid- to late-‘60s began about five years earlier in jazz. The straight-up bebop of the 1950s was gradually...
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Jazz composer, arranger, theorist, and pianist George Russell is not at all well-known outside jazz circles. But he’s big in the history of jazz. Recognized more for his role as…
Saxophonist Sam Rivers was a well-respected figure in the free jazz scene of the ‘60s and beyond, playing with Tony Williams, Andrew Hill, Dave Holland and many more. This playlist…
There’s a moment in many John Coltrane songs, just after the climactic sax solo, when the music hangs suspended, with nothing really happening—perhaps a fluttering of piano, some light drum…
Like Jackie McLean, pianist Andrew Hill is yet another of those second-tier artists in the upper echelon of ‘60s jazz greats. Not quite at the same level as Coleman, Coltrane,…
For any serious fan of ‘60s jazz, I imagine that the biggest names would surely have to be (alphabetically) Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus. Those four…
Trumpeter Miles Davis has had such a prolific career, that it would be nearly impossible to satisfyingly summarize his career in a mere five CD-length playlists. But here I am,...
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Saxophonist Ornette Coleman is one of the key figures in jazz history, notable for launching an entire genre, free jazz. The genre eventually took many forms—from atonal improvisation that defied...
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Intro text After John Coltrane, Charles Mingus was my next great jazz love. The first Mingus recording that blew me away was the album The Black Saint and the...
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