Kevin Whitehead

Music critic Kevin Whitehead has selected some special jazz box sets for the music lover on your gift list this holiday season.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Sound Grammar, the latest album from saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a recently re-released 1940 recording from pianist Frank Melrose called Bluesiana.

Everybody knows jazz is an American invention that mediates between African and European musical conventions. But for decades, African and European improvisers have been forging their own bonds and hybrids, without American mediation. As a case in point, here's a newly issued historical recording by the South African-born bassist Harry Miller: Harry Miller's Isipingo: Which Way Now.

Jazz alto saxophonist Jackie McLean passed away in March. McLean was a disciple of Charlie Parker and a leading hardbop saxophonist in the '50s.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a new reissue of the 1958 Duke Ellington's Spacemen album, The Cosmic Scene.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews The Clarinets, a new album from the clarinet-playing trio of Anthony Burr, Oscar Noriega and Chris Speed.

Clarinetist Ben Goldberg is a key figure in the Bay Area improvisational scene, where he became known in the early 1990s as a member of the New Klezmer Trio.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews It's All in the Game, by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead looks at the work of jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. This week, Monk received a special posthumous citation from the Pulitzer Prize committee for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz."