Jul 26, 2022

Within about a week of home quarantine in March 2020, pianist Emmet Cohen started live-streaming shows every Monday night from his apartment in Harlem.

At first it was just Cohen and his bandmates, drummer Kyle Poole and bassist Russell Hall, set up in Cohen’s living room. Eventually they started inviting guests, and...

Jul 19, 2022

Although the conditions that created jazz are distinctly American, without Europe it seems clear that it might not survive. Every summer hundreds of the greatest practitioners of the music and hundreds of thousands of fans gather across Europe at the major festivals to come together and celebrate it.

These gatherings...

Jul 12, 2022

After a two-year slowdown due to COVID, the Montreal International Jazz Festival came back this year. I had been there a couple times, in and out, as a musician. I went this year to cover the festival's full return for WBGO and The Third Story.

When you’re a musician at a festival like MJF, the job is actually pretty...

Jul 5, 2022

When Julian Lage plays guitar, it’s hard not to get swept up in it. His relationship with the instrument is natural and contagious. Maybe that’s because it’s been with him for most of his life. When he was just 8 years old, Julian was the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary film called Jules at Eight