The Jazz Life
The Jazz Life is a monthly column that aims to be a different take on how we write and read about jazz–stories of individual experiences, funny, sad, maddening and profound. A community talking to itself about what’s really important, or at least interesting to its members.
May Yu and the Evolving Voice of the Jazz Violin
by Kyle Simpler
On April 19, 2026, violinist May (Tianyang) Yu performed at NYU Skirball as part of To the Stars and Night, a gala event that included a string quartet piece commissioned by China's Ministry of Culture and developed by the Central Conservatory of Music. The production brought together institutional Chinese arts programming, conservatory-level training, and a contemporary New York performance venue. Within that setting, Yu stood out for her command of both classical performance and jazz improvisation. ...
Continue ReadingBob Graf: A St. Louis Tenor Voice the World Almost Missed
by Melodi Graf McCraine
There is a particular kind of musician who never quite makes it into the history books despite spending a career in the company of greatness. Bob Graf was that kind of musician--a jny: St. Louis tenor saxophonist who played alongside Count Basie, Woody Herman, Chet Baker, Grant Green, and Gerry Mulligan, recorded albums that still sell today, and spent five decades keeping jazz alive in the city that shaped him. He died in 1981 at 54. His story deserves to ...
Continue ReadingA House Full of History with Leslie Blackshear Smith in New Orleans
by Thomas Cole
On the recommendation of more than one person, I sought an audience with another of the born and raised New Orleanians who have been indispensable to an education in the town's traditional music. Living a stone's throw from the river and the shadows of an imposing abandoned factory, I knocked on the peeling paint of a wooden door to her fenced in garden enclosure, but the texted response was hardly hopeful--on a facetime call and can't talk. Departing to drive ...
Continue ReadingGrit. Discipline. Guts: A 25-Year Blueprint for the Modern Music Career
by Lindsey Boullt
I didn't start playing guitar until I was 21. No prodigy pipeline, no major-label safety net. Just a long runway of trial, failure, and forced problem-solving. Over 25 years in jny: San Francisco, I built a career combining performance, composition, education, and production--not as separate identities, but as a single ecosystem. The model is brutally hard to execute. In the AI/streaming era, it might be one of the only models that works. The Death of the ...
Continue ReadingA Farewell to Madrid's Café Central
by Artur Moral
It happened to jny: Chicago with The London House and The Velvet Lounge; it happened to jny: San Francisco with the Black Hawk Club and the Keystone Corner; and, of course, it happened to jny: New York City with Cafe Society, Sweet Basil, Village Gate and Jazz Standard. It has also happened in many other places and cities around the world. Now, it is happening in jny: Madrid: the emblematic Café Central of the Spanish capital closes its doors on ...
Continue ReadingThe Joy of Kissa
by Peter Jones
Just before a recent visit to Japan, essential reading arrived at home in the form of Philip Arneill's book Tokyo Jazz Joints (reviewed by Ian Patterson). Well, we all know that jazz is big in Japan, right? Certainly, jazz is a common backdrop to many everyday experiences in that country. You hear it in elevators, hotel lobbies, and department stores everywhere. And for the most part it isn't faux-jazz, smooth jazz, or easy listening: as you stroll across ...
Continue ReadingHarvie S: Building A Better Jam Session
by Peter Rubie
Jam sessions are strange creatures. A friend recently told me a story about a session he went to in a private home where a visiting pianist had basically come loaded for bear and would not relinquish the piano chair until she was finally thrown off by the host so others could have a turn. “I don't know about you," she apparently said somewhat haughtily as she left, “but I'm here to PLAY." Which is interesting, because I've found ...
Continue ReadingSongbirds: An Interview with Singer Judy Niemack
by Peter Rubie
Apart from their mutual respect for each other, and the fact that they are jazz singers, there isn't a lot, superficially, that you would think Judy Niemack and Jay Clayton have in common. But you'd be wrong. Both have a classical music background, Clayton at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before moving to New York City in 1963, and Niemack, who studied Bel Canto singing for three years when a teenager living in Pasadena, Ca., and ...
Continue ReadingOne of the Boys in the Band: Discovering my Dad
by George Gozzard
George Gozzard was the baby of a pretty large family the jazz trumpeter Harry Roy Gozzard raised. Harry was one of those great working musicians we heard about in the 1930s and through the 1950s who played jazz and dance band gigs interchangeably. These were the days of months long (if not longer) engagements musicians would have, where you could play jazz and make a living doing it.. And in this piece, George talks about finally beginning to understand who ...
Continue ReadingMy 'Other' Brother -- Remembering Jack Wilkins: 1944-2023
by Peter Rubie
Prologue This piece, in a shorter form, appeared as a post on my Facebook page a few days after my friend Jack Wilkins died on May 5, 2023. On behalf of a group of close friends I also helped write a remembrance piece for WBGO, one or two quotes of which are also included here. I thought that was it. I had written out my grief, certainly in terms of public displays anyway. Then we discovered that the ...
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