Patrick Jarenwattananon

When you read enough about the early lives of jazz musicians, you begin to spot a trend. A lot of artists caught the music bug from their parents.

With instruments and musicians around the house, it's easy for kids to grow curious about playing. But that's not nearly the whole ...

Blue Note Records has been many things over the course of its 75 years: a label responsible for blinding jazz innovations, a home for the titans of hard bop and soul jazz, a place for smart, sly, jazz-inflected pop creations.

One constant running throughout its history is improvisation. Its records ...

During the 1960s, Wayne Shorter came to the fore not just for his talent on saxophone, but also for the compositions he created. Whether with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers or with Miles Davis' quintet, or on his own string of solo albums, Shorter's harmonic conception, sense of space and bending ...

Norah Jones fans likely remember Come Away With Me — the 2002 recording which introduced her smoke-infused twang to the world. That album, like all of hers since, came out on Blue Note Records, merging her voice with those of major jazz artists of yesterday and the present. During ...

In a stretch of Blue Note albums throughout the 1950s, '60s and even early '70s, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, now 87, emblematized the hard bop and soul jazz that we now consider "straight-ahead." The old dog has resisted certain new tricks in music — "no fusion, no confusion" is his ...

Pianist McCoy Tyner and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson first connected on record in 1966, on Hutcherson's album Stick-Up! They must have realized they were musically simpatico — they've continued to work together for nearly five decades now. At the Blue Note at 75 concert, they didn't say a word, ...

Records show that 100 years ago today, a boy named Herman Poole Blount was born in Birmingham, Ala. Between that moment and his passing in 1993, the man nicknamed "Sonny" developed huge musical talent, synthesized an all-encompassing Afro-futurist worldview and grew into the name Le Sony'r Ra — Sun Ra ...

The iconic jazz label Blue Note Records turns 75 this year, and it's celebrating in Washington, D.C. As the capstone to a week of performances, film screenings and discussions, Blue Note artists gather in the 2,465-seat Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ...

Tonight's concert has concluded.

Jazz at Lincoln Center presents its annual gala concert, featuring an all-star lineup including host Billy Crystal and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsalis.

The theme for 2014 is Love, Loss and Laughter: The Story of Jazz, depicting a tour through jazz ...

Three out of four physicians believe that fellow doctors prescribe an unnecessary test or procedure at least once a week, a survey released Thursday finds.

The most frequent reasons that physicians order extraneous — and costly --medical care are fears of being sued, impulses to be extra careful and desires ...

If you've witnessed a headlining performance from pianists Toshiko Akiyoshi or Hiromi, visited a "jazu kissa" cafe where records are spun and coffee poured, or read nearly any work by author Haruki Murakami, then you probably have a sense that Japan has taken well ...

This weekend in central North Carolina, an adventurous music festival will pursue an explicit goal: to get more people to listen to jazz.

The event is easily the biggest production to date from the Art of Cool Project, a small concert-promotion outfit based in Durham. Encouraged by the ...

Ever since "Evolution of Dance," YouTube and videos which condense an entire canon into minutes have seemed made for each other. Except here it's not just some dude who can shake it, but pianist Kris Bowers, a Thelonious Monk Competition winner and highly sought-after young gun. ...

Yesterday, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced the recipients of its 2014 Performing Artist Awards, including 13 jazz and improvising musicians, who will receive at least $1.7 million in unrestricted grants in total.

The awards were given in two tiers. Six jazz musicians were given Doris Duke Artist Awards, worth ...

He's widely acknowledged as one of the best jazz drummers in the world. But he's also a singer-songwriter; a session man for Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell; the son of a singing preacher man from Louisiana. And though a man of such experiences is, as you might expect, quite busy, ...

Longtime friends and collaborators Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter headline the winners of the 2014 JJA Jazz Awards for musical achievement, which were announced today.

The awards, annually nominated and voted upon by members of the Jazz Journalists Association, recognize individual musicians, ensembles and recordings of ...

Wayne Henderson, trombonist and co-founding member of the popular jazz-funk band The Jazz Crusaders (later known as The Crusaders), died Friday, April 4, in Culver City, Calif. The cause of death was heart failure, according to The Crusaders' manager. Henderson was 74.

Along with fellow Houston musicians Joe Sample (piano), ...

Of the young guitarists on New York's jazz scene, few are as highly tipped as Matthew Stevens. Best known for his role in Christian Scott's quintet, he's often drafted to execute the new visions of his peers, but also gets calls from veteran musicians like Terri Lyne Carrington and Dr. ...

In the world of dance music, March will be remembered first and foremost for the passing of house progenitor Frankie Knuckles on the final day of the month. If you haven't read our remembrance by Barry Walters, please stop what you're doing and check it out. It's hard ...

Whenever photographer Chuck Stewart was hired by a record company to document a recording session, he would shoot during the rehearsal takes, playback and downtime. The company would take what it needed, the remainder likely never to be developed, much less published. After decades in the photography business, and thousands ...