Johnathan Blake: Before & After
When the world was in a more social way, the sight of Johnathan Blake behind the drum kit was a sign of maximum support, comfort, … Read More “Johnathan Blake: Before & After”
Ashley Kahn
Ashley Kahn is a Grammy-winning American music historian, journalist, producer, and professor. He teaches at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music, and has written books on two legendary recordings—Kind of Blue by Miles Davis and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane—as well as one book on a legendary record label: The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. He also co-authored the Carlos Santana autobiography The Universal Tone, and edited Rolling Stone: The Seventies, a 70-essay overview of that pivotal decade.
Ashley Kahn on social media
Charles Tolliver: Before & After
A few weeks before the release of Connect, Charles Tolliver’s first new recording in 13 years, the trumpeter and composer is home in New York … Read More “Charles Tolliver: Before & After”
Sullivan Fortner: Before & After
The weeks that preceded this online Before & After were sheer worldwide overload—murders and marches, more deaths and outrage, widening protests, all during a continuing … Read More “Sullivan Fortner: Before & After”
David Gilmore: A Before & After Listening Session
The crisis is upon us. The music community is upended. Each of us reprioritizes what we do and re-navigates how we do it. David Gilmore, … Read More “David Gilmore: A Before & After Listening Session”
Archie Shepp: Memoirs of a Gunfighter
Archie Shepp will mark his 83rd year on May 24, and will surely have to delay celebrating it in proper style until the coronavirus crisis … Read More “Archie Shepp: Memoirs of a Gunfighter”
Shabaka Hutchings: Before & After
That American audiences rarely get to experience the full extent of jazz talent from other countries is no secret, and nothing new. The door into … Read More “Shabaka Hutchings: Before & After”
Dezron Douglas: Before & After
For Dezron Douglas, a musical career was a family legacy, and it began early. “I’ve been playing bass in church since I was seven or … Read More “Dezron Douglas: Before & After”
Before & After: Emmet Cohen
Jazz is always busy writing its own history, sharing stories that lead to other stories. Take the documentary Keep on Keepin’ On, in which trumpeter … Read More “Before & After: Emmet Cohen”
Ted Dunbar: Teacher Man to Nile Rodgers, Kevin Eubanks, and Many Others
The full legacy of some musicians can be gauged as much by tracing their impact on those they trained as by their own performances. Guitarist … Read More “Ted Dunbar: Teacher Man to Nile Rodgers, Kevin Eubanks, and Many Others”
Nile Rodgers: From Jazz Roots
There’s a story Nile Rodgers likes to share, an early career lesson. It was at the onset of the 1970s; the precocious guitarist—still a teenager … Read More “Nile Rodgers: From Jazz Roots”
Before & After: Dayna Stephens
There’s a tune called “Clouds” on Gratitude—saxophonist Dayna Stephens’ ninth and latest album, from 2017—that captures his personality well. Serene on the surface, it opens … Read More “Before & After: Dayna Stephens”
Before & After: Lewis Porter
Hanging with Lewis Porter brings an exciting promise of discovery—some unknown fact about a jazz hero or some new insight into an historic recording. It … Read More “Before & After: Lewis Porter”
Adam Nussbaum: Groove Waves, Lead Belly, and a Plethora of Puns
One of the most impressive things about Adam Nussbaum is the stylistic range of the music he’s made. He played with James Moody for many … Read More “Adam Nussbaum: Groove Waves, Lead Belly, and a Plethora of Puns”
Ashley Kahn: Meet the Professor
These days, the name for what I teach is either Non-Performance Studies or Emergent Media. When I started teaching, only 15 years ago, it was … Read More “Ashley Kahn: Meet the Professor”
Robin Eubanks: Representing the Trombone Community
Just back from touring summertime Europe with the Mingus Big Band, Robin Eubanks has driven in from his home in northern New Jersey to meet … Read More “Robin Eubanks: Representing the Trombone Community”
A Conversation with Michael League and Terrace Martin
Every now and then at Holland’s annual North Sea Jazz Festival, the Jazz Café—the small room that hosts the festival’s talk events—fills to capacity. People … Read More “A Conversation with Michael League and Terrace Martin”
Johnny O’Neal: Pianist, Singer, Storyteller
If you haven’t caught Johnny O’Neal lately, you really should. The Detroit-born pianist and vocalist, whose fabled history includes a stint as a Jazz Messenger … Read More “Johnny O’Neal: Pianist, Singer, Storyteller”
Mark Guiliana: Searching for a Special Feeling
For audiences, a jazz festival “artist-in-residence” gig offers a special chance to hear a leading musician stretch out in various contexts, over the course of … Read More “Mark Guiliana: Searching for a Special Feeling”
Review: Oslo Jazz Festival 2017
To the jaundiced American eye, downtown Oslo—particularly along the walking street Karl Johans gate—is refreshingly neat and clean, with a healthy balance of older and … Read More “Review: Oslo Jazz Festival 2017”
Alice Coltrane: “The Gifts God Gave Him”
Twenty-seventeen marks a number of anniversaries of solemn significance for the Coltrane family. It’s been 50 years since John died and 10 since Alice Coltrane … Read More “Alice Coltrane: “The Gifts God Gave Him””
After Hours: New York’s Jazz Joints
Many of the legendary Manhattan nightspots where jazz musicians got their start are long gone but certainly not forgotten. It’s hard to imagine the careers of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie without the Cotton Club, the Royal Roost or the Five Spot. Ashley Kahn makes a decade-by-decade selection of the city’s defining clubs.
Before & After: Andy Bey
A listener, and storyteller, for the ages
Before & After With Snarky Puppy’s Michael League
Lots of insight, on little sleep
Roundtable: Kamasi Washington & Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah
On civil rights, and jazz as protest
Listening With Greg Osby
Saxophonist talks Hank Crawford, Steve Coleman and many more
A Conversation on Jazz & Hollywood
Way out West
Before & After with Melissa Aldana
Resolutely modern, with a classic-tenor core
Jamie Cullum and José James on Billie Holiday
Discussing the indelible influence of Lady Day
Before & After With Chucho Valdés
Just beautiful
Review: France’s Nice Jazz Festival
Intimacy, connection and a relaxed energy