Jazz

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a new album from the prolific composer and pianist Fred Hersch. It's called Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra, Live at the Jazz Standard.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings, a two-CD set from Concord Music Group.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Lucky Thompson: New York City, 1964-65 featuring rare live recordings of saxophonist Lucky Thompson.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Emperor March — Live at the Blue Note, the new album from the Charles Tolliver Big Band.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new albums: Booker T. Jones's Potato Hole, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

The grainy, blurry portrait of Ran Blake on the cover of his album, Driftwoods, looks like spirit photography: the pianist as ghostly presence. His playing can be spooky, too. The CD radically transforms popular vocal standards from Billie Holiday, Hank Williams, Quincy Jones and more.

On the new album Trombone Tribe, trombonist Roswell Rudd plays with a number of groups including his own sextet. Music critic Kevin Whitehead has a review.

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen blends South Asian music with American jazz. The jazz saxophonist says his inspiration to explore Indian music on the saxophone came from a CD his brother gave him as a joke called Saxophone Indian Style.

Jeff "Tain" Watts, an original member of the Wynton Marsalis quintet, has released an album titled Watts. But it's no ego trip; the disc is inspired, at least in part, by L.A.'s Watts neighborhood.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews For All I Care, the new album from The Bad Plus joined by Wendy Lewis.