Jazz

In November 1966, eight months before he died of cancer, John Coltrane played a concert at Temple University in Philadelphia. It was not a financial success —only 700 people showed up — and the band's high-energy music proved too much for some listeners. That concert recording is now officially out for the first time. It got Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead thinking about what Coltrane was up to.

Now that the pianists' Fats Waller project tours and has a new album, Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead admits to mixed feelings.

Wilson, who was also a trumpet player, wrote the arrangements for such greats as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles. He died Monday at 96 years old. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2006.

Turner's new quartet album Lathe of Heaven gets its name from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel. A lot of action happens at thoughtful medium tempos, and there's beautiful dissonance in the two-horn harmonies.

Before Ponty came to the States, he already had his concept. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the digital reissue of Sunday Walk.

On The Late Show, a set of previously unheard solo music from 1979, the jazz pianist employs techniques like suspenseful dropouts. He had a rare ability to sound archaic — and way ahead of his time.

The virtuoso jazz musicians perform from their new album of duets. It features hymns based on a tradition called shape-note singing, which dates to the early 1800s.

Between 1917 and 1932, the label released thousands of records. Jack White's Third Man Records has joined with the reissue label Revenant to release the first of two packages documenting Paramount.

"You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the wold," Haden told Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1992. The bassist died on July 11.

Fred Hersch pulls together jazz piano traditions that have little in common. Kevin Whitehead says the classic piano, bass and drums trio format suits Hersch best of all in a review of Floating.

The brass players' debut album is a set of pieces by Seattle-based composer and improviser Wayne Horvitz.

Jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Horace Silver died Wednesday at age 85. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead says that Silver had been off the scene awhile, but his influence is as strong as ever. Hear an appreciation.

Famed jazz pianist Horace Silver died yesterday. He spoke with Terry Gross in 1984.

Two fine albums by drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society, Man Dance and its sequel Barbeque Dog, are now available again as downloads, after being out of print for ages. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead says they're prime examples of the 1980s' so-called "free-funk" movement.

Rosenthal has played George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" solo and with symphonic and jazz orchestras. Now he's recorded a version for jazz trio as part of an all-Gershwin album.

That June, Miles Davis played four nights at the New York rock palace Fillmore East. Those performances are now out in full for the first time.

On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.

Musician Marty Ehrlich doesn't play much on his new album; instead, he conducts an ensemble that performs his compositions. He tells Fresh Air about his first album devoted to his orchestral music.

Starting in the late 1960s, the jazz saxophonist produced a series of recordings that came out on the musicians-owned Strata-East label. Those seven albums are now collected in a box set.

Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.