Jazz

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.

Lucian Ban, John Surman and Mat Maneri bring a fresh treatment — and musical chemistry — to the bare-bones folk transcriptions of the 20th-century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.

The Dayna Stephens trio's improvised grace in a compact setting — where players are interdependent, but no one steps on any toes — sets a good example for life during the pandemic.

Cogswell, who died April 20, was executive director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which houses journals, trumpets, tapes, photographs and other artifacts. Originally broadcast in 2001.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, Wrembel visited the Fresh Air studio to talk about his musical influences and to play, with his trio, songs from his new album, Django L'Impressionniste.

Konitz, who died April 15, had one of the longest careers in jazz. He was an intuitive soloist, with a mercurial tone, a quick mind and lifelong commitment to improvisation.