Ben Ratliff

Latest Articles

Getting the story

Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux sing jazz's many strains
Full-length written histories of jazz can be a slog. Especially since "the story of jazz" (as critic Marshall Stearns titled his 1956 tome) only gets longer and more complicated. Personally, on these prose-narrative trips along the New Orleans–New York axis of musical development, I usually bog down somewhere outside Chicago.
By JON GARELICK | December 01, 2009

Henry Threadgill Zooid | This Brings Us To, Volume 1

Pi (2009)
Henry Threadgill has been reinventing his language — and by extension the jazz language — for at least 30 years, beginning with the trio Air in the 1970s.
By JON GARELICK | October 28, 2009

Group efforts

Fly and the Tiptons
In November 2008, cutting firewood at his home in Brooklyn, Mark Turner, 42, arguably the most influential tenor-saxophonist of his generation, lost control of the power saw he was using.
By JON GARELICK | April 07, 2009

Close readings

Darrell Katz and the JCA, Ben Ratliff, Jeff Turton
The JCA has been at it since 1985, a collective of musicians who are primarily composers rather than players, in need of an outlet to hear their pieces.
By JON GARELICK | November 24, 2008

State of the art

Newport's Jazz ID check
You could find just about any kind of jazz you wanted on the three stages at the JVC Jazz Festival in Newport last weekend.
By JON GARELICK | August 14, 2008

Man of the Century

The late, great Bo Diddley helped put Lupo’s on the map
Bo Diddley, a particular favorite of Lupo, was the first “name” performer to play the club.
By PHILLIPE + JORGE | June 04, 2008

The cyborg and the sistah

Janet’s Discipline and Badu’s New AmErykah
What’s in a fantasy world?
By CHARLES TAYLOR | March 17, 2008

Sweet reads

Books: 2007 in review
Here, listed alphabetically by author, are 10 of the best works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry the Phoenix wrote about in 2007.
By JON GARELICK | December 17, 2007

Holy spirit of the saxophone

The John Coltrane Memorial Concert and Ben Ratliff’s Coltrane: The Story of a Sound
John Coltrane died 40 years ago this past July at the age of 40 of liver cancer.
By JON GARELICK | September 12, 2007

The tenorist

Jerry Bergonzi sets the standard — as player and teacher
The scene is typical for a Boston jazz date.
By JON GARELICK | June 19, 2007

Tales from the ’hood

Wynton takes some pot shots at pop culture
From the beat of the first hand-slapped tambourine, you know who you’re listening to.
By JON GARELICK | March 20, 2007

Midwestern master

Roscoe Mitchell brings the word from Chicago
I was going to say Roscoe Mitchell laughs like Mutley. But that’s not it exactly.
By JON GARELICK | October 17, 2006

Live, long and uncut

Columbia opens Miles Davis’s Cellar Door
Here’s Miles performing not in the laboratory of the studio but in front of a live audience, unmediated by the mixing board or the razor blade.
By JON GARELICK | January 12, 2006