Kevin Whitehead

Shorter, who died March 2, was inspired by film and literature, as much as by sounds. One of the great musical minds of our time, he had a profound influence on the course of jazz.

Wadud, saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, organist Joey DeFrancesco, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, trumpeter Jaimie Branch and saxophonist Ronnie Cuber are among the notable musicians who died in 2022.

Critic Kevin Whitehead reflects on the legacy of the musician who would have been 100 on April 22, 2022. Mingus died in 1979, leaving behind a catalog of music that reflected his outsized personality.

Barnes and Osborne would both be 100 on July 17. Barnes grew up in Chicago and went on to play on Bob Dylan's first single. Osborne turned up on records by Mel Tormé , Wynonie Harris and others.

Rollins recorded his first sessions in 1949, and played his last live shows in 2012. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, then we listen back to a 1994 interview with the tenor saxophonist.

More blues singer than Broadway, the Bird helped introduce bebop to jazz — and along the way redefined jazz velocity with his scrappy sound and pithy melodic figures.

Many jazz fans hate biopic films, but critic Kevin Whitehead likes noticing which true elements get in — or get left out — as messy lives are squeezed into stock-story formulas.

Over 90-some years of movies about jazz, many films have spun a familiar lick, sometimes falling back on stock standards when inspiration fails, and sometimes knowingly quoting from older works.

Tyner, who died on March 6, placed thundering piano chords under fast, right-hand melodies. He led his own groups for decades, but was frequently associated with one early employer, John Coltrane.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation of the singer, who died in 2006, then we listen back to a 1987 interview. O'Day first became known in 1941 when she joined Gene Krupa's band.