Nick and I have both been on a long-running campaign here to get Allen Toussiant his due. His imprint on New Orleans R&B, and American music in general is hard to escape but since he’s been more of a behind-the-scenes guy, his name doesn’t usually come up as often asRead More

There was, for a pairing of musicians so closely associated with other forms, an irrepressible blues feel to 1961’s “Bags Meets Wes,” reissued this year as part of the Keepnews Collection. That makes a chance meeting between Milt Jackson (longtime member of the complex, often formal Modern Jazz Quartet) andRead More

Remembering Pink Floyd’s often-overlooked co-founding keyboardist Richard Wright.

It must be tough to make a name for yourself as the little brother of such a towering figure in jazz as alto sax great Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley. Nat Adderley never did quite reach the legend status that his elder sibling did, but did manage to gain acclaim as aRead More

They are, these odds and ends, the last great treasure left by one Sam Maghett — better known as Magic Sam. This god of the tremolo embodied (just as fully, but with far less fanfare) the same gritty and adventurous West Side Chicago swagger more commonly associated with Buddy GuyRead More

It’s one of those Isaac Hayes shut-your-mouth moments. I’m talking about the news that Hayes, at 65, had passed. He was a renaissance man in gold chains, a composer and arranger unafraid of style. He’d wear sunglasses the size of milk saucers while directing a room full of musicians onRead More

To take the old-school harmonic brilliance of Duke Ellington into the realm of John Coltane — soon to establish himself as the picture of avant garde, stimulatingly free, out there in such a way as to legitimately draw comparisons with the spiritual — was, you imagine, a challenge of equalRead More

Have I really gone this far without shining a spotlight on Grant Green? Wow. Grant Green is an all time favorite guitarist of mine. He was one of the few out there who was technically amazing and could squeeze so much soul out of each note at the same time.Read More

NICK DERISO: Pianist Les McCann is something like a lesser Horace Silver — somebody with a soulful, bluesy delivery who often strayed a step too far into pop. This release showed why: Despite its many joys, a fat electric bass gave the CD an unwanted fusion-y feel — in particular,Read More

NICK DERISO: Starting her career with a winning performance at a Paradise Theater amateur contest in her native Detroit, Betty Carter first came to a large number of ears as a vocalist with Lionel Hampton’s group in the late 1940s. (Hamp, in fact, is the one who gave her theRead More