Today, we remember Texas jazz guitarist Herb Ellis, who has passed at 88 in his Los Angeles home after a long bout with Alzheimer’s. Over a career that spanned six decades, Ellis worked with a number of legends, including Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong and in the classic line-upRead More

Bursting forth as rock teetered between too-big prog pyrotechnics and mawkishly symphonic concept records, it comes as little surprise that Big Star seemed to disappear with barely a ripple. That, and the fact that Alex Chilton, who died yesterday at 59 after a heart attack, always seemed to be disappearing,Read More

by Nick DeRiso You hear Beatles songs remade by jazz musicians with notable frequency, some more successful (Jaco Pastorius‘ glorious reading of the oft-covered “Blackbird” from “Word of Mouth”; a just-right “All My Loving” on “Basie’s Beatles Bag”; Ramsey Lewis‘ underrated “Hard Day’s Night” from “Finest Hour”) than others (almostRead More

Sam Newsome, who first came into wider notice as a tenor-playing member of the Terence Blanchard Quintet in the early 1990s, takes the soprano to places both familiar and new on “Blue Soliloquy.” Subtitled “Solo works for the soprano saxophone,” it’s Newsome’s tone-poem love letter to what makes his newRead More

George Winston doesn’t get tangled up with nostalgia, and in so doing creates a fuller idea of just how compelling Vince Guaraldi really was.

by Nick DeRiso Perhaps best remembered in jazz circles for his melodic work on the fretless (notably as a member of the Pat Metheny Group from 1977-80), bassist Mark Egan’s earliest influences couldn’t have been more far afield. A former student of Jaco Pastorius at the University of Miami, EganRead More

In an interlocking story with a few shimmering asides, John Dufresne writes about everyday love in his book “Johnny Too Bad” with riveting color and emotion. Actually, a character named John writes about them, or tries to. Still, there are brilliant shards of light running through these pieces, which fitRead More

Click through the titles below for Something Else! reviews on a few of our favorites from Sunday night’s Grammy Award show, from Byrne/Eno to Corea/McLaughlin, from Derek Trucks to Diana Krall: LEVON HELM, ‘ELECTRIC DIRT’ (Best Americana album): An absurdly beautiful rural evocation, hard-eyed at times but rollicking and vulnerableRead More

by Nick DeRiso Marc Copland has this welcoming, inward voice — cerebral but somehow completely accessible, in the way of the most enchanting records by Bill Evans from years back. But as quiet as he can be, it seems that Copland never stops playing. “Alone” is actually the prolific pianist’sRead More

Both the most French of American musicians, and the other way around, Cajun rock star Zachary Richard makes roots music that couldn’t go by any other name. It is about his heritage, and his people’s, in Louisiana and in Canada and back all the way to France. In fact, hisRead More