Out this fall, a pair of brand-new records from Whalen’s Jazz Squad and Certain Seas showcase the ways that the Efland musician is stretching her stylistic wings.
Joe Vanderford
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Talking With Tyshawn Sorey About Max Roach, Spontaneous Composition, and North Carolina’s Musical History
The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist will play in Durham on November 21 as part of Duke Arts’ “Max Roach at 100” program.
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On “Belonging,” Former Durhamite Branford Marsalis Reimagines the Keith Jarrett Classic
Saxophone legend Marsalis, who lived in Durham from 2002 to 2024, is an artist-in-residence at NCCU. “Belonging” is his 32nd release.
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Frankie Alexander
Singer Frankie Alexander has been preaching the jazz gospel in and around Durham for more than a quarter-century. As a student of the legendary Bus Brown, she emerged from that onetime jazz crucible on Chapel Hill Street, the Salaam Center, and hasnt looked back. In fact, fueled by an Emerging Artists grant from the Durham […]
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A new beaten path
What is your conception of a jazz singer? Is it the casual finger-snap of Sinatra, all big-city sophistication and endless midnights, topped with a fedora? Is it the sonic sunshine of Louis Armstrong, handkerchief in hand, growling like a happy cat in mid-stretch? Or is it is the blues-informed sigh of Billie Holiday, eyes closed […]
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An evening with. . .
Singer Nnenna Freelon stopped being the local-girl-makes-good a long time ago. Since her debut disc appeared on Columbia Records, her 14-year ascent to the top of the jazz mountain has been slow, steady and utterly predictable. Everyone she met upon her arrival in Durham in 1982 realized immediately that she was something special–not as a […]
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Bill Charlap’s jazz traditions
When Bill Charlap brings his luxurious New York-based trio to Raleigh on Saturday, Triangle jazzheads will be treated to the ultimate primer on American Popular Song. Between Hillsborough Street and Western Boulevard, a retro-roadmap of musical Americana will emerge out of the ether. The audience will skip happily down Tin Pan Alley and bath in […]
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Arrogance, Suddenly again
When it comes to Arrogance, North Carolina’s original DIY rock ‘n’ roll band, either you were there–or you weren’t born yet. Thanks to the quintet’s rare reunion Saturday, July 23 in Carrboro, however, old-timers who dug these major dudes during the ’70s and ’80s will joyously commingle with the uninitiated. In other words, the parents […]
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in pure jazz
When bassist John V. Brown, director of Duke University’s jazz studies program, decided to create the Duke Jazz Festival, he didn’t mess around. He booked the ageless drummer Roy Haynes, who is 80 years old but moves with the easy grace of a young lion on the prowl. As a kid during the late ’40s, […]
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Cassandra Wilson’s quiet elegance
Get this: The best jazz singer in the world is not a jazz singer at all. Nope, I don’t mean Diana Krall, a true diva with maximum glitz and hypnotic, behind-the-beat phrasing. Or Kurt Elling, the Chicago-based virtuoso who can improvise arching leaps worthy of a vocal Superman. Or Dianne Reeves, a hard-swinging traditionalist. Or […]