Ted Panken writes extensively about jazz and creative music for various publications, and programmed jazz and creative music on WKCR-FM in New York City from 1985 through 2008. He won the 2007 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his article “Smalls Universe,” published by DownBeat, and earned the Jazz Journalists’ Association 2016 Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism award. His blog, Today Is The Question, contains over 260 of his articles and verbatim interviews.
Ted Panken on social media
In the concluding section of Marty Ehrlich’s gold-standard booklet notes for The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony (New World), a seven-CD extravaganza culled from the … Read More “Julius Hemphill: Greater Harmony”
As I absorbed Pasquale Grasso’s performances seriatim on the Sony Masterworks digital EP releases Solo Standards, Solo Ballads, Solo Monk, Solo Bud Powell, and Solo … Read More “Pasquale Grasso: The Pianistic Guitarist”
“My music always expresses the way I see things from day to day—how my perceptions change, what’s meaningful or less meaningful,” bassist Buster Williams told … Read More “Buster Williams: Ready for His Close-Up”
Between 1987 and 2000, before a combo of rheumatoid arthritis and rotator cuff surgeries on both shoulders made pianistic expression complicated, Donald Brown recorded 14 … Read More “Donald Brown: An Underrecognized Mind”
At 8:01 p.m. sharp on September 30 at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedia, Sylvie Courvoisier launched her first COVID-era public concert for six masked, socially distanced witnesses … Read More “Sylvie Courvoisier Is a Serious Player”
In a holiday telegram to his manager Martha Glaser, Erroll Garner asked about “my little princess.” He was referring to Glaser’s niece Susan Rosenberg. “My … Read More “Martha Glaser: More than a Manager”
If jazz polls don’t become collateral damage of COVID-19, Erroll Garner: The Octave Remastered Series (Mack Avenue) is the odds-on favorite for best reissue of … Read More “The Radical Legacy of Erroll Garner”
On Valentine’s Day weekend in Manhattan, a few weeks before the rampant spread of COVID-19 squashed the pleasure quotient of macabre entertainment, the Jazz Gallery … Read More “John Ellis: Words and Tones”
Cellist Hank Roberts’ recent Newvelle Records release, Congeries of Ethereal Phenomena, his tenth as a leader, springs from his decision in the summer of 2015—after the … Read More “Overdue Ovation: Hank Roberts Is Back in the Game”
That the modifier “rising” should no longer be applied to “star” when describing the remarkable vocalist Jazzmeia Horn is apparent throughout her sophomore release, Love … Read More “Artistry, Inc.: Jazzmeia Horn’s Personal Creativity Corporation”
Back with a vengeance, though he hardly left
Lessons from Mister T & Mr. McDuff
An artistic academic, a soulful technologist
Owner of an identity, with hints of Herbie
Absolute resolve, in life & art
“I believe that my music is an American story”
Jazz Passenger, genre-hopping journeyman
“Let the good stuff happen”
His life, music and philosophies
Drawing inspiration from a hobby and bridging the classical-jazz gap
A Russian-born trumpeter steps out with three recent albums
