This week for Jazz Friday, I’m featuring the Bill Evans’ cover of Santa Claus is Coming to Town from 1964. This is a weird track. It’s the only Christmas tune buried on Evans’ Trio 64 album released in January 1964. I’m guessing it is…

This year I’m going to feature some of my favorite holiday-themed jazz music every Friday. One of my favorites Wynton Marsalis’s Christmas Jazz Jam (iTunes) (Apple Music). Wynton, who I’ll cover another day in greater detail, is very much a traditionalist but as he’s…

If you’re interested in jazz, John Coltrane is a very big part of the story and this week PBS is running a documentary on his life, Chasing Trane. I haven’t seen it yet but it looks real good. The clip below is about A…

This month we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s birth. While I’ve featured some of Monk’s music in the past, I’ve never featured the man himself. It’s time to fix that. Thelonious Monk was one of the founding fathers of bebop and is…

For Jazz Friday this week, I’d like to feature one of my favorite pianists of all time, Bill Evans (website)(Wikipedia). Evans was one of the pioneers of the modal jazz movement and a significant influence on Miles Davis with the Kind of Blue album…

Joey Alexander, the jazz piano prodigy that continues to surprise me, released a new album, Joey. Monk. Live!, (iTunes)(Apple Music) where he played music from Thelonious Monk. I’ve written it before but I can’t get over how Joey plays with so much fire. I’ve heard…

If you’re building up your library of jazz standards, you definitely need tot add Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage (iTunes)(Apple Music) to the list. Maiden Voyage was the name of Herbie Hancock’s 1965 album and the title track. The song has a great sort-of motion…

Recently I was riding in my daughter’s car and she was playing the soundtrack from Baby Driver  (iTunes) (Apple Music) and this song came on that blew my mind a little bit. After a little investigation, I discovered it was a jazz band from…

Ricky Dover, Jr. tweeted Thelonious Monk’s bandstand notes from 1960. Great stuff … for anybody. You dig?

This edition of Jazz Friday features composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn (Apple Music) (Wikipedia). Billy started his musical career as a classical music enthusiast and wanted to become a classical composer. This never came to fruition, partly because racism. Eventually, however, Billy found a…