Previous episodes of Ken Burns’s JAZZ showed how jazz symbolized hope, relief, or escape for Americans during the Great Depression, but the seventh episode, “Dedicated to Chaos” shows jazz as a symbol of something else during the Second World War: defiance. This is one episode that is self-contained enough and good enough that I recommend…
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By the 1930s the center of jazz had moved from Chicago and Harlem, where it lived in the 20’s, to Kansas City. The sixth episode of Ken Burns’ series JAZZ, describes this period and the birth of Kansas City Jazz. One of the hallmarks of this form of big band swing was that few musicians…
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Last Wednesday, May 29, the music world lost someone very special. Mulgrew Miller, a warm-hearted jazz pianist with a sweet and bouncy touch on the keys, died at age 57 after suffering a stroke the previous week. As a bandleader, Miller was most well-known for his group Wingspan, made up of piano, vibraphone, saxophone, and…
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