Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
"When the Sun Goes Down" started in August 2002 with a four volume set of digitally remastered music from America’s roots. With all the music recorded and released in or before 1940, volumes 5 and 6 continue the tradition.
Take This Hammer contains 26 tracks, three previously unissued, from Huddie Ledbetter, better know as Leadbelly. Recorded in 1940, the songs are split between solo performances and collaborations with the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet.
According to Colin Escott’s liner notes, the album spoke to middle-class liberals and progressives, which challenged the standard blues album marketed to rural and working-class African Americans. Escott calls it one of the first "blues concept albums."
The stock market crash in 1929 and the depression that followed affected everything in America. Poor Man’s Heaven looks at the effects on music with 24 tracks, by as many different artists, all recorded between 1929 and 1940. Themes of hardship and hope are apparent.
Artists include Eddie Cantor, Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Alfred Reed, and Fiddlin’ John Carson. The album contains original versions of Ry Cooder recordings "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times" and "Taxes on the Farmer Feeds Us All," and a 1932 version of the classic "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" later covered by Brubeck and Pavarotti among others.
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
