Author Archives: The Independent Ear

In celebration of Randy Weston‘s 90th birthday, Wednesday, April 6 – which included a joyous surprise birthday party at a restaurant in Brooklyn – and in recognition of April as National Poetry Month, we remember Langston Hughes. Randy and Langston … Continue reading →

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is… — Noel Coward No truer words have ever been spoken (and thanks to WBGO deejay Sheila Anderson for that one, taken from her valuable book The Quotable Musician (Allworth Press). If jazz could only … Continue reading →

No question saxophonist Kamasi Washington is the current “it” man in jazz. Its not often that an unabashed jazz musician like the L.A. based tenor man garners the level of mainstream prints Washington has enjoyed. Certainly we recognize that the … Continue reading →

Producer LeRoy Downs interviewing Terence Blanchard for the premier edition of “The Jazz Creative” on the Aspire network Over the last few years a fixture at Dizzy’s Den on the grounds of the Monterey Jazz Festival, has been the hip, … Continue reading →

Joe Lovano is a true renaissance man of jazz, one of the music’s most diverse and most restless explorers, never content with one format over another, never prone to repeating ensembles for more than a tour, two at most. Scanning … Continue reading →