Settled In Shipping

The announcement that Billy Joel would be the first "music franchise" at Madison Square Garden brought back a flood of childhood ...

I've stayed out of the fray of this Vijay Iyer/Kurt Rosenwinkel/Macarthur brouhaha, but Rosenwinkel's most recent backtracking-of-hi...

Over my time spent in New York, and I guess my life in general, the allure of jam sessions has worn off. For all the great musicians I'v...

Like many others, I wrapped up my Jazz Fest drenched in the rain watching Amadou and Mariam outside. This was the only headline show on the ...

As hard as I tried to be on time, I walked into Laurent de Wilde's set about fifteen minutes late, just as he  beginning "New Nucle...

The festival press room, after a while, starts to feel like a family reunion. It doesn't feel like Jazz Fest until I've seen Mitch M...

Last evening was marked by reunions. Just before their 6 pm mainstage show, I ran into pianist Robi Botos and his trio in the press room. As...

(What happened to days 4 & 5? I was playing. More on that later.) As I approach nearly a decade of covering the Jazz Fest, I've le...

After a rehearsal for tonight's show with Sarah Linhares (her Montreal farewell), I headed down to the FIJM site for saxophonist Chet D...

I had to skip the first day of this year's Jazz Festival (not counting the pre-opening events with Patrick Watson and Pink Martini) due ...

Yesterday was International Jazz Day, commemorated with a star-studded gala in Istanbul and notable releases from Aaron Parks and Darcy Jam...

My trip to New Orleans was inspiring and revelatory. Some of the mystique of that city was stripped away - contrary to popular belief, Bourb...

I made my first pilgrimage to New Orleans this past week. New Orleans is one of three personal musical beacons, the others being Brazil and ...

I've been having many discussions with friends and colleagues about the state of the Montreal scene, or at least how I feel about it giv...

Tonight marks the final hurrah of L'Envers in its physical location of 185 Van Horne. Since trumpeter Ellwood Epps started this adventu...

I remember it like it was yesterday. I became enamoured with music at a young age, courtesy of Billy Joel's 52nd Street . I was a bit of...

My apologies for the umpteenth unplanned hiatus on the blog. Hopefully this rundown will explain why these pages have been fairly silent. Fo...

The universe works in mysterious ways. Upon my return from NYC (and mere hours after I made a big note of Ethan Iverson's advice to chec...

Sometime last year, I made a resolution to get down to NYC as often as time and money would allow. In lieu of actually moving there, I wante...

The final night of Jazz Fest was dedicated to groove. I started my evening with my Kalmunity colleague (and former piano student) Sarah MK. ...