[Editor’s Note: We are excited to have Anthony Dean-Harris join us again for our year-end lists to share his 25 favorite “jazz” albums and 10 “other” albums of 2021. Anthony is a skilled writer whose credits include being a contributor to Downbeat and serving as the former Editor-in-Chief of Nextbop. He is also an accomplished […]
Immediately following the year that artificially paused many releases, in 2021, the floodgates broke loose. It was nearly impossible to keep track of all recordings released between this Thanksgiving and the prior one. And, even ignoring this, the quality and volume made it especially difficult to rank even the ones you did notice. Consider even […]
Since the 1970s, Marilyn Crispell has been a major figure in creative music, pushing the piano into new realms, whether her hands are on its keys or in the instrument itself. While Crispell has some beautiful solo, trio, and quartet recordings to her name, it seems she has a particular affinity for the intimacy of […]
For over fifty years, Dave Liebman has been at the forefront of musical creativity. Whether his time as a sideman with artists including Miles Davis and Elvin Jones or his own works like Lookout Farm (ECM, 1973) or The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner (CMP, 1986) or his various recordings with Quest, he has […]
Jimmy Heath. Tony Allen. Chick Corea. Wallace Roney. McCoy Tyner. The names and pictures of iconic artists who passed since the last Newport Jazz Festival regularly flashed on both stage’s large screens between sets. While the Festival had made such touching presentations in years past, they were particularly noticeable at the 2021 Festival as thoughts […]
For most music festivals, the loss of a longtime sponsor could be a death knell. After all, organizers killed the Newport Rhythm and Blues Festival due to its inability to maintain a steady sponsor. The death of the company hosting the event on top of it would be – for most – a certain end. […]
In the four decades since the Newport Jazz festival first took place in 1954, it became a global brand with its production company- Festival Productions, Inc.- hosting hundreds of festivals worldwide. But only one other of their events took place in the city-by-the-sea; the Newport Folk Festival. This changed in 1995 with the birth of […]
Here it is, a “Best Of” list for the worst of years. Alright, that’s a bit jokey; the fact is that 2020 produced an extraordinary efflorescence of great music. Lilacs out of the dead land of pandemic-ravaged, polarized America. This list was culled from a larger list of superb recordings, 20 of them in all. […]
Historians will probably remember 2020 primarily for the COVID pandemic, movements for racial justice, and lots and lots of politics. While all of that is true, to me it will also mark the creation of this site. Postgenre was born on February 20, 2020, less than a month before state and local governments would begin […]
For nearly everyone, 2020 has been a time of difficulty. A pandemic. Intense political uncertainty. Murder hornets (?). It has not been an easy twelve months. To help cope, many look to the artist to provide an escape from their current circumstances. Fortunately, we are in the midst of a creative quasi-renaissance in which musicians […]
