NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Willie Nelson is cancelling an upcoming performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival and postponing other shows after a positive case of the coronavirus in his band.
NEW YORK (AP) — Singer Michael Feinstein, violinists Itzhak Perlman and Midori and pianist Evgeny Kissin will perform at a Carnegie Hall benefit concert for Ukraine on May 23.
Soprano Angel Blue, mezzo-sopranos Denyce Graves and Isabel Leonard, jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, singers Jessica Vosk and Adrienne Warren, and mandolinist Chris Thile also will perform along with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York, the Hall announced Tuesday.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A cathartic return of music and culture to New Orleans' chief music festival after three years ended its first weekend with the Red Hot Chili Peppers honoring the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins by closing out the show for his band.
Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 8-14:
May 8: Singer Toni Tennille is 82. Country singer Jack Blanchard is 80. Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett is 77. Actor Mark Blankfield (“Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” ″The Incredible Shrinking Woman”) is 74.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The memorial garden at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is about to get a lot more crowded as fellow musicians honor the many musical icons — known as “Ancestors” — who have passed since the festival was last held three years ago.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Once silenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival opened Friday for the first time in three years — a long awaited 2022 revival that holds echoes of 2006 when the annual celebration of music and culture went on even after Hurricane Katrina.
NEW YORK (AP) — Kurt Vile says he's always thinking about making catchy music — yet his attempts usually end up sounding fried or sizzled out.
It's an apt description of this Philadelphia-based songwriter and guitarist's vibe, amiable and hypnotic, the songs alone seemingly capable of producing a contact high.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The group Red Hot Chili Peppers has been added to the lineup of the 2022 New Orleans Jazz Fest, organizers announced Friday.
The rock band's appearance is set for Sunday, May 1, and will be its first at the event since 2016.
NEW YORK (AP) — Jon Batiste wears so many hats he may need a closet for them all — recording artist, bandleader, musical director, film composer, museum creative director and scion of New Orleans musical royalty.
New York (AP) — Acclaimed musician Robert Glasper’s magic-infused fingers have touched everything from jazz to hip-hop to R&B, and now he’s included TV series music on his resume by co-scoring the new shows “Bel-Air” and “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” The pianist’s musicianship can’t be trapped in any one category — and that’s how he prefers it.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — With its president saying it had racist origins, the New Orleans school board has unanimously reversed a little known but century-old ban on jazz in schools in a city which played a huge role in developing jazz and where it is still played nightly at various venues.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The school board in the city where jazz took root is preparing to undo a little-known 1922 rule that bans jazz music and dancing in public schools.
Officials tell The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate that the policy has racist origins, as its creators sought at the time to distance New Orleans schoolchildren from the African Americans who created the genre.
“Jacob’s Ladder,” Brad Mehldau (Nonesuch Records)
Brad Mehldau’s new album includes a cover of the Rush song “Tom Sawyer,” which brings to mind Mark Twain, which brings to mind a quote attributed to Twain regarding the music of Mahler: “It’s better than it sounds.”
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It's been two years since the largest free festival and showcase of Louisiana music, food and culture has taken place in New Orleans' French Quarter.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — American rocker Iggy Pop, known as “the godfather of punk”, and Ensemble Intercontemporain, a contemporary music orchestra based in Paris, have won the 2022 Polar Music Prize, a Swedish music award.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jazz pianist, session musician and bandleader Bobbe Long “Beegie” Adair, who played on over 100 records throughout her six decade career, has died. She was 84.
Her manager, Monica Ramey, said Adair died Sunday in Franklin.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Sandra Jaffe, who co-founded Preservation Hall in New Orleans, introducing countless people to jazz through the intimate French Quarter venue over six decades, has died.
Jaffe died Monday, her son Ben Jaffe, creative director of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, said on the hall’s Facebook page.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yo-Yo Ma spent the better part of the pandemic playing cello to an online audience seeking solace in his music.
On Friday, he marked his return to San Francisco by playing an energetic Bach cello suite before a live audience to inaugurate the opening of a new performance center designed to increase public access to classical and jazz music.
NEW YORK (AP) — George Wein, an impresario of 20th century music who helped found the Newport Jazz and Folk festivals and set the template for gatherings everywhere from Woodstock to the south of France, died Monday.
LONDON (AP) — Charlie Watts, the self-effacing and unshakeable Rolling Stones drummer who helped anchor one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections and used his “day job” to support his enduring love of jazz, has died, according to his publicist.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It's a neighborhood bar and restaurant, but for two extended weekends every year, the “regulars” at Liuzza's by the Track include an overflow crowd of tourists grabbing drinks and settling in for meals on their way in and out of the nearby New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Robert Ringwald, the pianist who played and promoted jazz in California for more than half a century, has died, according to his daughter, the actor and musician Molly Ringwald.
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Tucson's iconic Hotel Congress is getting a revamp that staff say is more than a century in the making.
The historic property, which has been closed all of July, is slated to re-open Aug.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Vince Velasquez tossed a two-hitter over seven innings, Rhys Hoskins hit a solo homer and the Philadelphia Phillies held on for a 4-3 victory over the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.
Julian Lage, "Squint” (Blue Note Records)
In the right hands, 12 notes multiplied by six strings can produce endless variety. Here's proof.
Jazz guitarist Julian Lage's Blue Note Records debut is an exuberant, engaging, endlessly inventive exploration of styles.
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Philharmonic will resume subscription performances in September following a historic 18-month gap caused by the coronavirus pandemic, presenting a shortened schedule of 78 concerts in a season shifted from Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall while the orchestra’s home is remodeled.
Between points, one man’s lonely voice left the press box to pierce the air at Court Philippe Chatrier as Rafael Nadal played Richard Gasquet under the lights in the City of Light to close the French Open’s second round.
NEW YORK (AP) — For years Wayne Brady had been working on a one-man show about being a young Black man growing up in Orlando, but he could never finish the project.
That’s until acclaimed actor Glenn Close asked him to participate in her spoken word jazz album.
Ray Gallon, "Make Your Move” (Cellar Live)
Professor of piano Ray Gallon's album debut is way overdue.
Gallon, a jazz faculty member at the City College of New York, has been a sideman onstage and in studios for more than 30 years in support of such performers as Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Joe Williams and Jane Monheit.
NEW YORK (AP) — Glenn Close recently made music-related headlines for her playful performance of “Da Butt” at the Academy Awards, but the revered actor has some real music news: she’s releasing an album with Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist-composer Ted Nash on Friday...
NARVA, Estonia (AP) — Two jazz musicians gave an unusual concert Friday on the Estonia-Russia border, where Estonian guitarist Jaak Sooäär and Russian saxophonist Alexey Kruglov performed from castles on the opposing banks of the river that separates their countries...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pixar's “Soul” has won the heart of Oscar voters, continuing the Disney division’s dominance in the best animated feature category...
AVENTURA, Fla. (AP) — Name a show tune, jazz standard or movie score, and chances are 91-year-old Peter Fuchs can not only hum it, but play it from memory on his keyboard...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A partial list of winners in the top categories at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, presented Sunday in Los Angeles...
NEW YORK (AP) — One of the country's oldest cultural instititutions, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is undergoing some of its biggest changes in more than a century...