Duke Ellington

Latest Articles

Happy returns

Boston Ballet’s Coppélia , Alvin Ailey at the Wang
George Balanchine didn’t go in for productions of the old classic ballets.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | April 20, 2010

Reeling in the years

John Pizzarelli keeps jazz moving on
Call John Pizzarelli a mensch — he's smart, chatty, and a hot ticket. Hell of a guitarist, too.
By JIM MACNIE | February 25, 2010

Native son Bill Flanagan — novelist and MTV executive — discusses big books, musical longevity, Irish Catholicism, and Behind the Music .
Once a staple of the pages of The NewPaper (original incarnation of The Providence Phoenix ), Warwick-born Bill Flanagan went on to become a prominent rock journalist whose credits include U2: At the End of the World , the definitive portrait of one of the world's biggest bands.
By MICHAEL ATCHISON | February 05, 2010

Fusionists

Natraj and friends expand their neighborhoods
Nobody likes labels — except maybe critics. And we all want to live by Duke Ellington's measure of quality: beyond category. Beyond names and borders, that is, in a post-racial society. And yet, the word "fusion" — at least in music — has a pejorative connotation, suggesting bland pastiche and commercial opportunism.
By JON GARELICK | January 12, 2010

Getting the story

Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux sing jazz's many strains
Full-length written histories of jazz can be a slog. Especially since "the story of jazz" (as critic Marshall Stearns titled his 1956 tome) only gets longer and more complicated. Personally, on these prose-narrative trips along the New Orleans–New York axis of musical development, I usually bog down somewhere outside Chicago.
By JON GARELICK | December 01, 2009

Sunday school

Ronald K. Brown at the ICA
Ronald K. Brown’s flamboyant choreography comes with a big serving of spirituality.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | October 21, 2009

Cheesy and crackers

Too much southern exposure. Plus, a rant — unpamper those kids!
There is no place hotter in the media lately than South Carolina, "The Cracker State," whose logo is still essentially the Confederate flag.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | September 16, 2009

The music man

George Wein, the father of American music festivals, reflects on bringing world-class folk and jazz (and more) to Newport
Forty years after a half-million hippies descended on a sprawling dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock has become shorthand for an entire epoch.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 05, 2009

Frank's way

Simply Sinatra at Theatre by the Sea
Musical revues can be like videos of old golf tournaments — endless, amiable tedium interspersed with opportunities to wake up and smile nostalgically. Not so with My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra , at least not with this terrific production opening the season at Theatre by the Sea (through June 14).
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 02, 2009

Covers uncovered

The Bad Plus plus a singer
The Bad Plus plus a singer
By JON GARELICK | March 09, 2009

President Obama

The trek ahead
In retrospect, it all seems of a piece: suitably fitting, almost ordained.
By EDITORIAL | January 21, 2009

Mixed nuts

Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker
Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker , the ultimate multicultural Christmas celebration, has become so inclusive, it's almost a blur.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | December 19, 2008

Good fellows

Brian Blade and company help blaze jazz’s newest path
The jazz tide is shifting once again.
By JON GARELICK | October 20, 2008

Light and dark

Fusionworks’ captivating mood swings
Fusionworks Dance Company has always presented a variety of contemporary pieces by a wide range of choreographers, with an emphasis on the work of artistic director Deb Meunier.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | March 19, 2008

Personal code

Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo-jazz connection
The connection between jazz and India is at least as old as John Coltrane’s composition named for that country.
By JON GARELICK | February 12, 2008

Duke Levine

Beneath the Blues | Loud, Loud Music
It’s an essay in tension and restraint.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | February 05, 2008

The long view

Bob Blumenthal’s history of jazz
Bob Blumenthal’s first book is out, and the wonder is that we didn’t get it sooner.
By JON GARELICK | January 29, 2008

Norman Granz Presents Improvisation

Eagle Eye
The 1950 footage is only part of the story: the program is fleshed out with equally dazzling later performances.
By JEFF TAMARKIN | January 14, 2008

Scene and heard

The year ahead in DVDs
Entertainment companies are pumping out music DVD titles by the hundreds, and 2008 will see a deluge of releases across all genres.
By JEFF TAMARKIN | December 31, 2007

January 2008

Monthly forecast
Monthly forecast
By SYMBOLINE DAI | December 31, 2007

Boxed and ready

The cream of the season’s CD/DVD crop
The cream of the season’s CD/DVD crop
By PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | December 14, 2007

Urban cheek

BalletRox's Nutcracker
There are several meanings to the word popular, and BalletRox’s The Urban Nutcracker satisfies the truest of them.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | December 11, 2007

Nostalgia, remixed

Billie Holiday unstuck in time
It’s not that I think Billie Holiday: Remixed and Reimagined is some kind of unforgivable desecration.
By JON GARELICK | December 07, 2007

In action

The ‘Jazz Icons’ DVDs
In the era of YouTube, we’re apt to forget that not every note of music ever played has been captured on film or video.
By JEFF TAMARKIN | November 26, 2007

Choir boy

Travis Morrison and his Hellfighters
Former Dismemberment Plan frontman Travis Morrison has a new album, and though he says it’s not a solo disc, you’d be forgiven for thinking so.
By MIKAEL WOOD | November 15, 2007

Only connect

Remembering Herb Pomeroy
Maybe there have been better musicians in Boston than Herb Pomeroy — maybe — but no musician has been more loved.
By JON GARELICK | September 04, 2007

Boston music news: June 22, 2007

Notes on the Boston Pops, Darkbuster, and Beatlejuice
Keith Lockhart doesn’t think the Edgefest mix is much different from when the Pops played with Duke Ellington.
By JIM SULLIVAN | June 19, 2007

Converging streams

Ailey does Ailey and Tharp, plus Caitlin Corbett
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater offered two milestones in the development of contemporary dance during its annual Celebrity Series visit to the Wang Theatre last week.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | May 01, 2007

The golden age

The USM School of Music celebrates 50 years
The University of Southern Maine’s School of Music celebrates a golden anniversary, with a performance featuring nearly 300 performers and two world premieres by Maine composers.
By BEN MEIKLEJOHN | April 25, 2007

Stormy weather

BSO cancellations, plus the Camerata, Jonathan Biss, Emmanuel Music, and more
The BSO has been having terrible luck hanging on to its star soloists.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 28, 2007