Playing With Ornette
On a warm, cloudy afternoon in June, Ornette Coleman and I walk from 9th Avenue to his condo on West 36th Street. I’m…
RIP Ornette Coleman, Who Confounded Most People And Humbled Us All
“There is a law in what I’m playing, but that law is a law that when you get tired of it, you can change it.” So said…
Jack DeJohnette Just Put Out The Best Jazz Record Of 2015
Chicago long ago grudgingly ceded second-banana status to Los Angeles w/r/t population and cultural might, but on all…
Straight From The Heart
From Whitney Balliett's book American Musicians: Fifty-Six Portraits in Jazz:
Kind Of Weird: How The Köln Concert Made Keith Jarrett A Pop Star
The most improbably exhilarating record I've ever heard was recorded 40 years ago, at a special late show in the…
Jazz Needs A Better Sense of Humor
What can it mean for jazz as a living art when the most hotly debated genre event of 2014 was a satirical post on a…
I Must Go On. I Can't Go On. I'll Go On.
Our man Mark Jacobson has a beautiful story on Sonny Rollins in the latest issue of Men's Journal. Rollins played with…
Former First Round Pick Now Growing Marijuana, Hoarding Assault Rifle Ammo
We can not, repeat NOT blame the lockout for this one. Jose Ortiz, known as Piculín and revered as a hero in Puerto…
Free Darko On Los Angeles-Utah
We're looking at every NBA Playoff series through the eyes of both Free Darko. Here's Free Darko's look at the Los…