Blue Note, the world-famous record label founded in 1939, turns 80 today. It was on Jan. 6, 1939 that the label’s co-founder, German immigrant Alfred Lion, produced its first recording session in New York City, featuring the boogie-woogie piano of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. To draw attention to its important legacy, Blue Note…Read More

The 43rd annual Spoleto Festival USA is scheduled to take place May 24 through June 9, 2019, in Charleston, S.C. The festival will feature more than 150 events, from opera to theater to music, with a particular emphasis on jazz. Wells Fargo Jazz, the festival’s jazz series, will showcase a wide variety of jazz musicians,…Read More

Yvonne Ervin, a jazz journalist, photographer, musician, fundraiser, promoter, broadcaster, and educator who was the founder and executive director of the Tucson Jazz Festival, died Dec. 26 at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Ariz. She was 59. Her death was confirmed to the Arizona Daily Star by her husband, Alan Hershowitz, who said that the…Read More

H&H Classics, the specialist auction house dedicated to the sale of collectors’ vehicles, will launch its first online live auction on Feb. 2, 2019—and the most exciting item is shaping up to be a 1985 Chrysler Le Baron Town & Country Turbo “Woody” Estate car once owned by Frank Sinatra. According to rumor, the car…Read More

Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington’s short film, As Told to G/D Thyself, which is inspired by his most recent album, Heaven and Earth, released on the Young Turks label in June, will premiere in January 2019 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The film was directed by a collective called the Ummah Chroma,…Read More

The sixth Jazz FM Awards will take place at Shoreditch Town Hall in London on Tuesday, Apr. 30, coinciding with UNESCO’s International Jazz Day. The awards are meant to highlight the range of talent across the worlds of jazz, soul, and blues, featuring both emerging artists and established stars. In the past, the event has…Read More

Pianist, composer, and educator Arturo O’Farrill has partnered with UNICEF to release a new music video for “Line in the Sand,” the concluding track from Fandango at the Wall, his expansive double album released Sept. 28 via Resilience Music Alliance. The record features more than 60 guests, including O’Farrill’s Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, violinist Regina…Read More

The American Pianists Association has announced the jury for the final round of its contest to name its new Cole Porter Fellow, the prestigious award given every four years to an American jazz pianist at the end of a 13-month competition process called the American Pianists Awards. The jurors are Stanley Cowell, pianist and professor…Read More

The Jazz Education Network (JEN)’s JAZZ2U initiative has been picked by the Herb Alpert Foundation to receive a $25,000 grant, which will help the organization dole out grants of its own. JEN—which seeks to build the jazz community through education, promotion, and audience development—will give out grants ranging from $300 to $500 on a first-come, first-served…Read More