Articles by Joshua Weiner
Cecil Taylor: Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts
by Joshua Weiner
"On one level you can look at him as one of the grandfathers of the free jazz tradition," says pianist Matthew Shipp of Cecil Taylor in the generous booklet included with Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, a three-LP set released by Elemental Music for Record Store Day 2026 (CD and digital releases will also follow). “But on the other hand...(h)e was very insistent that he came out of a certain tradition, and he talked about Ellington, Monk, and ...
Continue ReadingJoe Henderson: Consonance: Live At The Jazz Showcase
by Joshua Weiner
After 15 years in the vaults, Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase represents the first fruits of “Jazz Detective" producer Zev Feldman's expedition into the tape archives of jny: Chicago club owner Joe Segal. Working with Joe's son Wayne Segal, Feldman and Resonance Records founder George Klabin have prepared a quartet of vinyl sets, recorded live at The Jazz Showcase, for Record Store Day 2026, with CD and digital releases to follow a week later. Joining Joe Henderson's triple LP ...
Continue ReadingBill Evans: At The BBC 1965
by Joshua Weiner
Jazz 625 was a British television show, hosted by trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, that ran from 1964 to 1966 on BBC2; the name comes from the higher-resolution 625-line UHF system that the station employed for broadcast. The show featured a variety of British musicians as well as top American artists such as Art Blakey, Jimmy Giuffre, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet. The archives thus hold a treasure trove of mid-60s jazz and, thankfully, the 35 ...
Continue ReadingVince Guaraldi: It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown/Charlie Brown's All Stars
by Joshua Weiner
The series of complete Peanuts television special soundtracks put out by Lee Mendelson Film Productions continues with a delightful disc coupling music from 1976's It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown with seven brief cues from 1966's Charlie Brown's All Stars. Vince Guaraldi's inimitable compositions and Latin jazz piano stylings first brought Charles Schulz's comic strip world of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang to animated life in 1965 with the evergreen A Charlie Brown Christmas. Apart from its crucial role in ...
Continue ReadingMore Muse-ical Masterpieces Reissued By Time Traveler Recordings
by Joshua Weiner
Shortly after the label was sold to Fantasy in 1971, Prestige Records producer Joe Fields founded Muse Records to document the next phase in jazz. Selections from the Muse catalog are now being given audiophile-quality vinyl reissues by producer Zev Feldman, whose new imprint, Time Traveler Recordings, extends his what he calls his “jazz detective" work for the Resonance, Elemental, and Blue Note labels. Feldman was able to work from the original Muse master tapes, which were thankfully in good ...
Continue ReadingJazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis at Hancher Auditorium
by Joshua Weiner
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Hancher Auditorium jny:Iowa City, IA January 29, 2026 Wynton Marsalis, the great trumpeter, composer and educator, founded New York City's Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) in 1987 and has served as its artistic director ever since. JALC, home to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO), exists “to entertain, enrich and expand a global community for jazz through performance, education, and advocacy." The JLCO, a big band ...
Continue ReadingJack West/Walter Strauss: Guitars on Life
by Joshua Weiner
Emerging from the jny: San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s, acoustic guitarist Jack West forged a new style on 6-and 8-string instruments that integrates percussive use of the strings and guitar body with melody and harmony. Spicing his tunes with repeated harmonics and slide flourishes and incorporating influences from jazz, folk, rock and Americana music, West has released several albums, both solo and with his group Jack West & Curvature in which his guitar was complemented by percussion, saxophone, ...
Continue ReadingIgor Willcox: Have Drums, Will Travel
by Joshua Weiner
Brazilian drummer Igor Willcox is fast becoming one of the most interesting young artists in jazz. A string of superb releases with his jazz fusion quartet, which currently includes saxophonist Wagner Barbosa, electric bassist Ricardinho Paraiso, and pianist Erik Escobar, culminated in the 2025 album Time Traveller (Room73 Records, 2025). Music is in Willcox's blood, as Igor descends from several generations of successful musicians. “My mother, Sônia (Rocha) Willcox, is a celebrated Brazilian singer, and my father, Paulo César Willcox, ...
Continue ReadingBob Schlesinger: Falling From Earth
by Joshua Weiner
Many a music project was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Colorado-based pianist, composer, and educator Bob Schlesinger's Falling From Earth (Self-Produced, 2025) has had a longer gestation and more interesting rebirth than most. With funding from the Pathways to Jazz fund, part of the Boulder County Arts Alliance, Schelsinger initially planned for his first release as a leader to be a trio album with legendary Bill Evans bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Billy Drummond, whose expansive career with many ...
Continue ReadingJerome Sabbagh: Stand Up!
by Joshua Weiner
While much great jazz has emerged from one-off encounters among musicians, there is a lot to be said for the synergy of longstanding working bands. The former may provide more spontaneity and produce fireworks, but it can also lead to the occasional dud due to a mismatch in approach. Players in a working band, in contrast, gain a deep knowledge of each other's artistic choices, learn what works and what does not, and--by definition--must be doing something right, since their ...
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