Those outside of Norway may be unfamiliar with bassist Agnar Aspaas (b.1955), and if they’ve heard of him at all it might be ...

Indelible as it may be, the Louisiana delta doesn’t have a monopoly on a tradition of musical cross-breeding. South Florida ...

Trumpeter Guy Barker, well-known as in the vanguard of the first so-called British jazz revival of the 1980s, when he played ...

Monk’s third solo album (the first was Thelonious Alone and the second Thelonious Himself) came about because producer Orrin ...

If there actually are any contemporaries of mine out there, readers who recall the popular music landscape before rock got ...

This Danish release follows hot on the heels of last year’s issue on Timeless of the fourth album in the Eastern Rebellion series (reviewed in JJI, November 1984). Third Set was actually re­corded six ...

Jazz Journal critics were invited to allot 100 points to 10 choices from the albums reviewed in Jazz Journal in 2018, with a maximum of 20 points per choice. After unhurried, seemly and properly ...

Nicole Mitchell is a renowned flautist and former chair of the AACM. Ballaké Sissoko an innovative kora player from Mali. Both are esteemed composers and both have defied convention in their ...

A new release from Tunisian oud player Anouar Braham is a rare event: its predecessor, Blue Maqams, appeared all of eight years ago in 2017. This recent, poignant album is titled after a line of verse ...

The 2025 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, now in its 55th year, has evolved over the last 20 years from its original format of celebrating the music culture of New Orleans and Louisiana to what ...

One of the more curious movements to emerge in popular music of the 1950s was known as “exotica”. Its main exponent was the pianist and composer Martin Denny, and this, his 1957 album, topped ...

Milky smoke from an incense stick is pirouetting around a dozen porcelain cats and one bowl of dry-roasted peanuts. Alto saxophonist Caroline Davis lights a candle. Then she opens a copy of Before The ...