Most jazz is in four. You can tap your foot to it, the bar divides into four even beats, and the music is built on the assumption that everyone in the room knows where beat one is. That default is so strong that the exceptions have become famous partly for being exceptions. “Take Five” is …
As one of the busiest bass players in jazz, Buster Williams worked with a who’s who of major vocalists over more than half a century. But for all that experience, what stayed with him most were the lessons he learned on bandstands — not about technique, but about how performances actually connect with an audience. …
In jazz, revolutions often arrive loudly — new rhythms, bigger ensembles, dramatic stylistic breaks. The music of Paul Bley moved in the opposite direction. His playing rarely rushed toward climaxes. Instead, he carved space inside the music, allowing silence to become part of the improvisation. Notes appeared sparingly, sometimes separated by long pauses that gave …
In jazz history, certain musicians become known almost instantly by the way they sound. Others become known by the energy they bring to a bandstand. With Johnny Griffin, listeners recognised both. In this article we’ve highlighted some of his greatest albums. For listeners exploring his work as a leader, these albums offer a strong entry …
Some singers dominate a room with power. Others draw listeners closer with subtlety. When Johnny Hartman began recording in the 1950s, his voice belonged unmistakably to the second category. In this article we’ve highlighted six recordings which reveal one of the greatest male jazz singers of all time. Hartman’s baritone carried warmth and patience. He …
The tenor saxophone has always been an instrument of personality. Some players push it toward raw power, others toward lyrical warmth. When George Coleman emerged in the late 1950s, listeners immediately noticed the balance in his sound. In this article we dig into 6 of our favourite George Coleman albums: Coleman’s tone carried authority without …
Join us as we turn our attenion to a musician from Los Angeles who built a musical empire; the life and career of Herb Alpert told through the lens of some of his greatest albums. In the early 1960s, instrumental pop records rarely dominated radio charts. Vocal groups and rock bands were taking center stage, …
When guitarist Grant Green arrived in New York at the start of the 1960s, he didn’t sound like anyone else on the scene. Many jazz guitarists favored dense chord voicings or fluid bebop lines influenced by Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery. Green took a simpler route. His approach relied on single-note melodies, blues phrasing, and …
In the mid-1970s, New York’s jazz scene was changing rapidly. Traditional clubs were disappearing, replaced by informal performance spaces where musicians organized concerts themselves. Warehouses, artist lofts, and community venues became laboratories for new music. Into this environment stepped a young tenor saxophonist from California: David Murray. His sound was immediately recognizable — broad, slightly …
The first thing listeners noticed about Cootie Williams wasn’t volume — it was personality. His trumpet could snarl, bend, and growl in ways that sounded almost vocal. In the 1930s, when big-band brass sections were built around brightness and projection, Williams found a different path. His sound carried grit, humor, and dramatic shading. Most listeners …