Natalie Merchant

Dave Kline At Blues Alley

by Mark Edelman
June 28, 2025

Dave Kline Blues AlleyWashington, DC June 20, 2025 Keyboard, guitar, bass and drums: a standard jazz quartet, no doubt, no argument. But add electric violin, trombone and the Chinese dulcimer and you've got something entirely different. Dave Kline and friends brought that unique line-up and a passel of original tunes to ...

Sharel Cassity: In the Spirit

by Katchie Cartwright
May 19, 2025

Even on an old familiar tune like Charlie Chaplin's “Smile" (1936), it is clear from note one that Sharel Cassity is a child of Bird, an altoist in the modernist tradition of Charlie Parker. Her first influence was actually her biological father, an organist, with whom she shared the stage in New Orleans at age 11, ...

Allison Miller and Michelle Dorrance at 92NY

by Paul Reynolds
February 7, 2025

Allison Miller and Michelle Dorrance 92NY “Rivers in Our Veins"New York, NY February 2, 2025 Jazz and tap have long been enthusiastic dance partners. With “Rivers in Our Veins," drummer and composer Allison Miller adds further art forms to the mix. The 80-minute piece celebrating America's waterways marries ...

Doug Wamble: Blues in the Present Tense

by Vic Albani
April 16, 2024

I testi cantati del “Blues al presente" di Doug Wamble parlano degli americani “turlupinati" dal cinismo del signor Donald Trump: ?Non leggere i loro giornali / Non guardare le loro news / Non cominciare a pensare, baby?, canta Wamble in “Blues in the Present Tense," mettendosi proprio nei panni del discusso personaggio mettendo in qualche modo ...

Newport Jazz Festival 2019

by Doug Hall
August 9, 2019

Newport Jazz Festival Fort Adams State Park Newport, RI August 2-4, 2019 The 65th Anniversary Newport Jazz Festival continued an established tradition of delivering an exceptional level of high quality musicianship. Over the three fully packed days (and one special evening at the International Tennis Hall of Fame) from August 2nd ...

Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom: Glitter Wolf

by Jennifer DeMeritt
April 17, 2019

Some jazz musicians dare you to follow them to the rarefied realm of their imagination, where you might discover paradise, or you might get lost in a forest of abstraction. Allison Miller says, “Hey, let's take a ride!" then revs the engine and takes you on a grand tour of a carnival of sounds. A masterful ...

Krakauer's Ancestral Groove: Checkpoint

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 6, 2016

Clarinet master David Krakauer was born in raised in New York City. As he spread his considerable chops throughout NYC's classical, electronica and jazz scenes, he became known as a Klezmer specialist but just as often appeared as a soloist or member of various symphony orchestras, string quartets and chamber ensembles alongside a head-shaking variety of ...

Artistry in Rhythm: Afro-Cuban Epiphany to Haitian Voodoo

by Chris M. Slawecki
July 29, 2016

Brian Andres & the Afro-Cuban Jazz Cartel This Could Be That Self-Produced 2016 This Could Be That celebrates the first decade of Brian Andres & his Afro-Cuban Jazz Cartel, which came together in 2007 in and around the San Francisco Bay Area's Latin jazz hothouse. Music is ...

Dick Hyman: The Beat Goes On

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 8, 2013

Composer, arranger, bandleader, pianist, soloist and accompanist Dick Hyman has already lived several jazz lifetimes, and as he contemplates his 86th birthday in March 2013, his career shows no sign of slowing down.A New York City native, Hyman served as pianist with a Dixieland band and with Lester Young at the December 1949 opening ...