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Charles McPherson
Alto saxophonist Charles McPherson was born in Missouri, but grew up in Detroit. Moving to New York at 20, in 1959, he connected with Charles Mingus, with whom he’d work off and on until 1972. He can...
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Anna Hogberg Attack
The self-titled debut album by Swedish saxophonist Anna Högberg‘s sextet, Attack, came out in early 2016 on the Omlott label, and I totally missed it, despite very much enjoying her guest appearance on...
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Conference of the Birds
by David Menestres There are few things that trigger memory the way a favorite album will. The smell of your old car burning oil, summer humidity pouring in your open windows faster than the breeze you...
View ArticleBarre Phillips
It seems almost impossible, but the idea of the solo double bass album only goes back fifty years. The album generally credited as being the first was Journal Violone by Barre Phillips, recorded on...
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Greg Ward
In the latest Burning Ambulance podcast, bassist Melvin Gibbs and I discuss a wide variety of subjects related to his 40-year career in New York and around the world. One of the things we talk about...
View ArticleRoots Magic
Photo: Eleonora Cerri Roots Magic is an Italian quartet: Alberto Popolla on clarinet and bass clarinet, Errico DeFabritiis on alto and baritone saxes, Gianfranco Tedeschi on bass, and Fabrizio Spera on...
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Anthony Braxton
At seventy-six years of age, perhaps no living musician has done more to explore and interrogate the worlds of improvisation and the avant-garde more than Anthony Braxton. He has constructed an entire...
View ArticleWinter & Spring
Discussed in this essay: William Parker Trio, Painter’s Spring (Thirsty Ear, 2000); William Parker Trio, Painters Winter (AUM Fidelity, 2021); Other Dimensions in Music, Live at the Sunset (Marge,...
View ArticleWeird Nightmare @ 30
Hal Willner was a man possessed by a very specific type of genius, one that was perfectly suited to his home city of New York, and to the music industry when it was at its creative peak, with its...
View ArticleBebop
Jazz at Massey Hall is a live album that was recorded in 1953 in Toronto by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. It’s the only recording to feature all five...
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