Jazz

In 1968, legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk performed at Palo Alto High School and gave perhaps one of his best live performances of his career. The recording was discovered by his son, T.S. Monk, some 36 years later—previously, it just sat on the shelf of the man who organized the event.

Charles "Buddy" Bolden's story is haunting and captivating with excessive highs and terrifying lows. Few people are familiar with his influence on the music culture, yet his musical ingenuity touches each of us.

"Hello Dolly!" was a song Louis Armstrong never wanted to record in the first place. But it became his greatest hit. Here's the story of how that happened.

Many of the popular songs of the big band and swing eras influenced many artists to come and shaped popular music for a generation.

"Blame It on the Bossa Nova" was a hit for Eydie Gormé in 1963. This catchy pop tune is a song about bossa nova music or, according to the lyrics, the "dance of love."

Billy Strayhorn was Duke Ellington's collaborator for 28 years. But he was also a gifted composer in his own right. Here are 10 of Strayhorn's best compositions.

Southern Silk Duo is a husband and wife team that carries on the tradition of some of the great R&B duo's of the '70s and '80s.

Jazz is a music genre that is underrated especially in this 21st Century pop culture.

Duke Ellington was a major figure in the history of music. His concert tours included Robert R. Church's Park and Auditorium located on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

This page explores the album cover illustrations by graphic designer David Stone, including a great photo log of several DSM album covers.

Eva Cassidy, was a little known American singer and musician who became popular around the world after her death. Learn more about her and her music. Eva's beautiful voice will captivate you.

Mack the Knife is one of my all time favorite songs. Here is my top Eight list of performers of this song in no particular order.

My top love songs from Ol' Blue Eyes himself. He's so dreamy!

A Complete guitar lesson of the jazz standard, Misty. Read on for chord melody charts, modal breakdown, and videos.

Jazz was born out of the pain of slavery and the clash between the cultures of West Africa and the Protestant ethos of the Southern states of the United States. This is a first article in a series looking at the history of jazz through an examination of its many genres.

Exile was a two-edged sword for the South African musicians who left their homeland for the freedom of Europe and the United States. This is a selection of some of the finest albums to come out of the greaat South African jazz diaspora

I've narrowed down the extensive recorded output of the great John Coltrane to ten essential albums that any jazz fan needs to have in their collection.

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Revised Edition 2006) jazz is "a type of music of Black American origin characterised by improvisation, syncopation, and a regular rhythm, and typically played on brass and woodwind instruments" and the origin of the word itself is given as "early 20th Century: of unknown origin."

A non-traditional list of the all-time-best jazz songs, including music created by artists who don't necessarily fit into the purist's definition of the genre.

Just like all forms of popular music, jazz can be broken down into a bunch of different categories: swing, big band, traditional, smooth, acoustic, jazz, new age, free form, and more.

I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t listen to jazz music because they feel intimidated by the music. That’s where I come in.