Sonny Rollins: a very conscientious blindfoldee.
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
Sonny Rollins performing at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 1992
(Photo: Ronald Heard)
Jack DeJohnette has never been willing to sit still long enough to be categorized.
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
“One of the reasons that we appear to be not so popular with the so-called ‘jazz’ public is because they expect Miles to be doing something he did five, 10 years ago,” said drummer Al Foster. “This current band is going in another direction, and I think that it’s wrong to put the music down simply because it differs from yesterday. … My favorite musicians today are Miles, Sonny Rollins and Sly Stone. I love the variety available to us. You lose something when you restrict yourself.”
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
“To see him is still an experience,” Andy Bey said of Jimmy Scott. “Life force. Still blues-based, still a lot of soul.”
(Photo: Steven Sussman)
“I heard Lou Donaldson for the first time, and that down-home feeling of his was a gas,” said Bunky Green about one of his early influences.
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
The cover image of DownBeat’s Sept. 7, 1978, issue, which featured in-depth coverage of President Jimmy Carter’s jazz picnic party on the White House’s South Lawn. The historic gathering honored and was honored by a history of jazz that embraced everything from ragtime through the avant garde.
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
“If you never suffered, you can’t play the blues,” says Lou Donaldson.
(Photo: Tomas Ovalle)
The candidate and his crew, from left, Kenny Barron, James Moody, Rudy Collins, Dizzy Gillespie, Chris White and Shelly Manne.
(Photo: Robert Skeetz)
Albert Ayler
T.S. Monk at home
(Photo: Michael Weintrob)
At 25 years old, bassist Esperanza Spalding wasn’t overly concerned with marketability.
(Photo: Sandrine Lee/Montuno Productions)
In addition to making significant contributions to the jazz canon’s batch of standards, saxophonist Benny Golson appeared in a pair of films and was photographed in “A Great Day In Harlem.”
(Photo: Oliver Rossberg)
Tomasz Stańko
(Photo: Andrzej Tyszko)
Count Basie (1904–1984)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Benny Goodman
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Lena Horne
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Tony Williams
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Dexter Gordon (1923–1990)
(Photo: Rob Bogaerts/National Archives of the Netherlands)
Claudio Roditi (1946–2020)
(Photo: David Gahr)
Gil Evans (1912–1988)
(Photo: Carol Friedman/gilevans.com)
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
(Photo: William P. Gottlieb/Library Of Congress)
Lennie Tristano (1919-1978)
(Photo: William P. Gottlieb/Library Of Congress)
Joni Mitchell performs in 1983.
(Photo: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
Trumpeter Lee Morgan (1938–’72) performs with the Jazz Messengers on Nov. 15, 1959, at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Art Tatum (1909–’56)
(Photo: William P. Gottlieb/Library Of Congress)
Lee Konitz (1927–2020)
(Photo: Jimmy Katz)
Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990)
(Photo: Nationaal Archief, The Hague)
Stan Getz (1927–1991)
(Photo: Lee Tanner)
Lionel Hampton (1908–2002)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Benny Golson genuinely is excited by the opportunity to write good music in any genre.
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Woody Herman (1913–1987)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Chet Baker (1929–1988)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Sun Ra (1914–1993)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/Impulse!)
Ella Fitzgerald (1917–’96)
(Photo: Verve)
Jelly Roll Morton (1890–1941)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/Nonesuch)
Billie Holiday and her dog, Mister, in New York City during February 1947
(Photo: William P. Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress)
Oscar Peterson (1925–2007)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/Verve)
Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/Columbia Records)
Ornette Coleman (1930–2015)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/Verve)
“Doing shows and festivals under your own name, it’s a surprisingly big difference compared to playing with someone else,” saxophonist Kamasi Washington said, discussing the attention he’s received since the release of The Epic (Brainfeeder). “There is a lot of responsibility.”
(Photo: Mike Park)
Galt MacDermot (1928–2018)
(Photo: Dagmar/DownBeat Archives)
Nancy Wilson (1937-2018)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Kenny Werner
(Photo: Alessandra Freguja)
Pianist Teddy Wilson (1912–1986)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Pianist and bandleader Lynne Arriale once told a journalist: “Jazz should not be only for jazz lovers.”
(Photo: Juan Carlos Villarroe)
Randy Weston at The New School in New York
(Photo: Jimmy & Dena Katz)
Eric Dolphy (1928–1964)
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
Jack Bruce (1943-2014) continued playing jazz and blues while performing in Cream during the 1960s.
(Photo: Marek Hoffmann)
Bassist William Parker is reaching an audience beyond the commercially restrictive categorization he refers to as the “avant-garde ghetto.”
(Photo: Courtesy of the Artist)
Marian McPartland and Mary Lou Williams in 1978, about 14 years after the two spoke for “Mary Lou Williams: Into The Sun,” which originally was published in DownBeat on Aug. 27, 1964.
(Photo: Courtesy of South Carolina Educational Television)
In 2013, ECM reissued Charles Lloyd’s first five albums for the imprint—Fish Out Of Water, Notes From Big Sur, The Call, All My Relations and Canto—as a box set.
(Photo: Courtesy Kurland Agency)
Wes Montgomery plays at the Essex House Hotel in Indianapolis in 1959.
(Photo: ©Duncan Schiedt/Courtesy of Resonance Records)
Sun Ra
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
1993 NEA Jazz Master Jon Hendricks at the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters event.
(Photo: Michael G. Stewart, courtesy of National Endowment for the Arts)
Randy Brecker
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
John Abercrombie (1944–2017)
(Photo: © Deborah Feingold/ECM Records)
Clark Terry (1920–2015)
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
The Beatles
(Photo: Courtesy the artist)
Art Blakey
(Photo: DownBeat Archives/R. Howard)
Terry Gibbs
Larry Coryell performs at The Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis on May 23, 2015.
Mose Allison
(Photo: Michael Wilson)
Louis Armstrong was elected into the DownBeat Hall of Fame via the 1952 Readers Poll.
Bobby Hutcherson (1941–2016) performs at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2008.
(Photo: Frank Stewart)
Freddy Cole (1931–2020)
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)
Cannonball Adderley
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)
