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.
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“From the very beginning, in 1966, we’ve been a festival for the people of Barcelona, not for tourists. We’re known to our community and to … Read More “The Scene: The Barcelona Jazz Festival Reaches Out to its Community”
Jeff Ballard—drummer, bandleader, educator, and intrepid spirit—plops himself down into the chair onstage with a smile and a dark beer. Less than an hour after … Read More “Jeff Ballard: Before & After”
Joe Farnsworth, whose drumming has been the driving wheel in bands led by McCoy Tyner, Benny Golson, Harold Mabern, and Pharoah Sanders, is coming to … Read More “Joe Farnsworth: Before & After”
“I live close to the ocean here in Los Angeles, so I’m surfing pretty much every day, and fortunately my family is close by—my folks, … Read More “Gerald Clayton: Before & After”
ln praise of Woody, Wynton and more
Camille Thurman blowing tenor with the Jazz at Lincoln Center big band behind her. Fronting the quartet co-led by drummer Darrell Green. Switching from saxophone … Read More “Camille Thurman: Before & After”
After a year of lockdown, it’s getting hard to tell if someone is naturally gregarious, or if the need for conversation and interaction is driving … Read More “Warren Wolf: A Before & After Listening Session”
Wallace Roney’s departure on the last day of March 2020 was a gut-punch in a year filled with far too many shocks. In the opening … Read More “Wallace Roney: The Man with the Horn”
“We played the first week of March at the Jazz Standard with a sextet and went into the studio on the Monday and Tuesday right … Read More “Dafnis Prieto: 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”
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”
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”
When this Before & After took place, the pandemic crisis was less than two months old. The music community had been upended, everyone scrambling to … Read More “David Gilmore: A Before & After Listening Session”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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””
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.
