Miles Davis

Latest Articles

Floating heavyweights

Club d'Elf, Julian Lage, Jérôme Sabbagh, and Michael Feinberg
Club d'Elf, Julian Lage, Jérôme Sabbagh, and Michael Feinberg
By JON GARELICK | April 13, 2011

Flesh and blood: Phil Wilson's Miles and Gil

Plus Benny Sharoni's hard bop and Ben Powell's fiddle magic
When I first put on Benny Sharoni's new Eternal Elixir (Papaya), there was, as a composer friend of mine likes to say, "nothing wrong with it." That is, it seemed no better or worse than a zillion other straight-ahead tenor-saxophone discs.
By JON GARELICK | November 09, 2010

Chucho, Mike, and Lina

Havana, Chicago, and a dash of Toronto
Anyone who has doubts about the musical supremacy of Chucho Valdés — or wants an introduction to it — need only listen to "Danzón," the second track from the new Chucho's Steps.
By JON GARELICK | October 12, 2010

Does jazz have a melody problem?

Phil Sargent and Daniel Bennett try a new approach
It seems lately that every other jazz musician I talk to under 40 wants to talk about melody — how it’s the thing they all care about.
By JON GARELICK | June 02, 2010

Extremeties

Dave Holland and Tomasz Stanko come to town
You can experience jazz at two different extremes at the Regattabar this month, in visits from the quintets of Dave Holland and Tomasz Stanko.
By JON GARELICK | April 16, 2010

Ralph Towner/Paolo Fresu | Chiaroscuro

ECM (2010)
For some, these open, airy, acoustic guitar/trumpet duets, couched in typically pristine ECM production, will fall too easily on the ear.
By JON GARELICK | March 16, 2010

Into the groove

Funkatronic kick out the hybrid-fueled jams
The 2010 Best Music Poll nominees announcement is fast approaching, but we do know all of the '09 victors will return to defend their titles, including jazz/funk reigning champs Funkatronic, who are looking for a three-peat.
By CHRIS CONTI | April 12, 2010

Jimi Hendrix | Valleys Of Neptune

Legacy (2010)
The Imaginary Hendrix Vault boasts so many hypothetical treasures.
By ZETH LUNDY | March 03, 2010

Miles Davis | The Complete Columbia Album Collection

Columbia/Legacy (2009)
Given the consensus that the CD era is drawing to a close, labels have begun to look increasingly toward the well-heeled — those who not only still buy their music on something they can hold but aren't averse to buying it in supersized, extravagant configurations they can show off and savor.
By JEFF TAMARKIN | December 09, 2009

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

Live and on record

Darius Jones, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Ben Goldberg’s Go Home
To call Darius Jones’s music avant-garde seems almost beside the point. In its way, it’s older than old — it’s ancient.
By JON GARELICK | November 04, 2009

Interview: Warren G

Smooth hustler
Humble and nonchalant as ever, Warren G is cooler than Miles Davis smoking an Alaskan cucumber.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 28, 2009

Teachers and students

NEC and Berklee set the jazz stage
Several of this fall's promising jazz performances are clustered around the week of October 18. That marks the 40th-anniversary celebration of the jazz-studies program at New England Conservatory, which, created by Gunther Schuller, established NEC as one of the international twin beacons of jazz education in Boston along with Berklee College of Music.
By JON GARELICK | September 14, 2009

More than guitar

Julian Lage's talent isn't just in his fingers
"I like using songs to change the environment — to get the listener's ear to be a little skewed."
By JON GARELICK | September 08, 2009

United we stand

A 'vote' for George Nee. Plus, euphemisms, bad sports, and the bucket
With the local AFL-CIO elections coming up, Phillipe and Jorge would like to make a rare union endorsement by saying that nothing would please us more than to have George Nee, current secretary-treasurer of the organization, win his bid to take over departing Frank Montanaro's position as the organization's president.
By PHILLIPE & JORGE | August 26, 2009

Up for the challenge

Rhythmafia: a new breed of mashup
Rhythmafia have been on the scene for about four years, and in that relatively short time the Providence natives — Rob Cinami (drums and backup vox), Jamie Kearns (guitar), Zack Chagnon (bass), and frontman Sam Montes — have successfully delivered a blatantly unique sound through the course of three albums.
By CHRIS CONTI | August 25, 2009

Street rhythm

Florencia Gonzalez gets ugly . Plus, Dave Holland is sitting pretty.
In the city where Florencia Gonzalez grew up — the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo — every neighborhood has its own candombe group. These are drum outfits that might meet on a Sunday afternoon, a Wednesday night, or particular holidays, depending on neighborhood tradition.
By JON GARELICK | August 25, 2009

The music man

George Wein, the father of American music festivals, reflects on bringing world-class folk and jazz (and more) to Newport
Forty years after a half-million hippies descended on a sprawling dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock has become shorthand for an entire epoch.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 05, 2009

Inside out

Charlie Kohlhase's Explorer's Club, Lee Konitz + Minsarah, and Steve Swallow recanting
Charlie Kohlhase's love affair with jazz began with the avant-garde. As a high-school kid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he found that it was Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago who rocked his world.
By JON GARELICK | July 06, 2009

Meet the Beatles!

The Gary Burton Quartet remembers its roots
Swallow says that when he first picked up an electric bass, "My immediate impression was: 'Oh, shit! I'm in deep trouble here!' "
By JON GARELICK | June 17, 2009

Chick Corea and John McLaughlin | Five Peace Band Live

Concord (2009)
Chick Corea and John McLaughlin first encountered each other in Miles Davis's group in the late '60s before taking his electric-jazz lessons and going on to invent fusion with Return to Forever (Corea) and the Mahavishnu Orchestra (McLaughlin).
By JEFF TAMARKIN | April 21, 2009

Griot act

Malian performer Rokia Traoré breaks through with Tchamantché
Some albums are extraordinary because they capture their time. Others are great because they transcend it.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | February 12, 2009

Review: Miles Davis - Kind of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition

Columbia/Legacy
Columbia/Legacy
By JON GARELICK | December 12, 2008

Alone together

Wayne Shorter Quartet, Berklee Performance Center, December 3, 2008
How can a jazz band play no swing rhythms, no grooves, and, really, no songs, and hold 1200 people rapt for an hour and 25 minutes, with virtually no breaks in the music?
By JON GARELICK | December 05, 2008

A different Empire

The many sounds of upstate
I grew up in central New York, and I can confirm that anyone who grows up in upstate who wants to do something interesting or awesome usually winds up doing it somewhere else
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 02, 2008

Upstate of mind

Mercury Rev dig out of Buffalo
Mercury Rev dig out of Buffalo
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | December 03, 2008

Mixed grill

Scarecrow Mobius, Monique, and Morley
Dave Bryant stood among the folding chairs in the audience before Scarecrow Mobius's gig at Outpost 186 a week ago Monday night, looked at his two-deck keyboard rig, and mused, "Not pretty, but I guess it will do. I had more room at rehearsal."
By JON GARELICK | December 01, 2008

Crossword: ''Court case''

Time to mix and match
Time to mix and match
By MATT JONES | November 19, 2008

The doctor is in

Stanley Sagov’s jazz remedies, plus Saxophone Summit
That Stanley Sagov plays jazz at all is impressive. That he plays it at such a high level is stunning.
By JON GARELICK | October 08, 2008

Cinematic

Empirical go to the movies, plus the Hot 8
Talking with Nathaniel Facey, the alto-saxophonist in the London band Empirical, you find it difficult at first to pin down where and how the quintet developed their unusual compositional style.
By JON GARELICK | July 28, 2008