Culture
Jazz beyond the music — its history, communities, venues, and place in the broader culture.
The Twin Cities Jazz Festival: What Makes It Different
Free admission. 20,000 people. National headliners. Running every June in Minneapolis since 1999.
The Rooms That Came and Went: A Map of Twin Cities Jazz Venues
I've spent forty years watching Twin Cities jazz rooms close. Rossi's, Jazzmines, the Times—most are gone. What survived tells you what sustains a scene.
The Artist's Quarter: Three Lives of St. Paul's Jazz Room
The Artist's Quarter ran 37 years across three locations. Kenny Horst ran it on no salary. DownBeat called it one of the 150 best jazz venues in the world.
Captain Jack McDuff's Minneapolis Years
Jack McDuff died in Minneapolis in 2001 at 74. He spent his last 11 years here in a career renaissance. He gave George Benson his first break.
The Dakota: Minneapolis's Last Major Jazz Club
The Dakota has been open on Nicollet Mall since 1985. It outlasted every other major jazz club in Minneapolis. DownBeat and USA Today have both recognized it.
Debbie Duncan: Minnesota's First Lady of Song
Debbie Duncan came to Minneapolis in 1984 for six weeks and stayed 36 years. Won Jazz Vocalist of the Year so often the MMA retired her from it. Died 2020.
The Emporium of Jazz: Mendota's 25-Year Jazz Miracle
The Emporium of Jazz ran in Mendota, MN from 1966 to 1991. The Minnesota Historical Society named it one of 150 things that made Minnesota.
How Did Minneapolis Pull This Off?
Minneapolis shouldn't have a jazz scene this deep. No touring route, brutal winters, mid-sized population. I was there. Here is why it happened.
Irv Williams: Mr. Smooth
Irv Williams arrived in Minneapolis in 1942, turned down three jazz legends to stay, and played here until his death at 100 in 2019. Mr. Smooth.
KBEM Jazz 88: The Station That Held the Twin Cities Scene Together
KBEM Jazz 88 broadcasts 24 hours of jazz from Minneapolis. Run by the public school system. No other station quite like it anywhere.
Leigh Kamman and The Jazz Image
Leigh Kamman hosted The Jazz Image on MPR from 1973 to 2007. Broadcasting since 1939. I produced his show for years.
Maria Schneider: From Windom to the World
Maria Schneider grew up in Windom, MN, studied with Gil Evans, and became one of jazz's most Grammy-decorated composers. Minnesota's best-kept secret.
The Peterson Family: Minnesota's Four Generations of Jazz
Minnesota's most productive musical dynasty. Five children went national. Prince, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, and Fleetwood Mac all worked with Petersons.
The Bad Plus: Minnesota's Gift to Modern Jazz
The Bad Plus came from Minneapolis and became one of the most covered jazz groups of the 2000s. The New York Times wrote about them. Columbia signed them.
The Twin Cities Jazz Society and Jazz Notes
I served on the Jazz Society board in the 1980s and edited Jazz Notes, the weekly publication that held our scene together before the internet.
Chicago Jazz Clubs: The Rooms That Made the Sound
Chicago pulled jazz north during the Great Migration and made it harder, faster, and louder. These are the clubs where that sound still lives.
New Orleans Jazz Clubs: Where to Hear the Real Thing
New Orleans invented jazz and never stopped playing it. Here are the clubs and rooms where the music still sounds like it belongs.
New York Jazz Clubs: The Definitive Guide to the Village and Beyond
New York did not invent jazz, but it gave jazz a career. The Village Vanguard, Blue Note, and Smalls are still open. Here is how to navigate the scene.
Twin Cities Jazz: The Scene That Raised Me
Minneapolis and St. Paul sustain a full-time jazz radio station, a world-class club, and a free festival. I spent forty years inside it.
The 15 Best Jazz Guitar Albums Ever Recorded
The jazz guitar canon runs from Charlie Christian to Julian Lage. These fifteen albums trace the full arc.
 at the piano, Paramount Theater, New York, ca. November 1946](/.netlify/images?url=%2Fimages%2Fcovers%2Fjazz-piano-guide.webp&w=640&h=400&dpl=69d68a2e58b095000820fe31)
Ten Jazz Piano Albums That Tell the Whole Story
Ten piano recordings that trace jazz from Art Tatum's stride to Keith Jarrett's solo improvisation. A guided listening path, not a ranked list.
What to Listen to After Kind of Blue
Kind of Blue is the most recommended entry point in jazz and the most common place to stop. There is a great deal more on the other side of it.
Miles Davis vs. Wynton Marsalis: The Argument That Defined an Era
Miles Davis thought Wynton Marsalis was playing old music in fancy clothes. Marsalis thought Miles had abandoned jazz. They were both partly right.
How to Start Listening to Jazz: An Honest Guide
Most beginner's guides to jazz tell you what to listen to. This one tells you how to listen — which is the more useful and more neglected question.
Where to Start with Miles Davis: A Discography Map
Miles Davis made over sixty studio albums. The question of where to start is real. The answer depends entirely on what you want from the music.
How to Collect Jazz Records Without Losing Your Mind
Jazz record collecting is obsessive and expensive. Both reputations are warranted. The third — that it rewards obsessiveness — is most warranted of all.
Jazz in Film: What the Movies Got Right and Got Wrong
Films about jazz tend to get the music wrong in the same way: they mistake suffering for authenticity, and technical mastery for artistic vision.
Jazz and Hip-Hop: A Lineage, Not a Collaboration
Sampling was not hip-hop producers taking from jazz. It was the same musical culture extending itself into a new technological environment.
Jazz Beyond America: The Global Traditions That Grew Their Own Roots
Jazz is American music in origin. It has been something else for decades — a global practice with regional traditions as distinct as any national music.
The Room Where It Happens: Why the Jazz Club Is Irreplaceable
Streaming has given us everything except the one thing that matters most. You can hear every record ever made. What you cannot do is be in the room.
Don Was on the Tone Poet Series and the Blue Note Vaults
Don Was went into the Blue Note vaults and heard a master of Mode for Joe. He said it would bring tears to your eyes. The Tone Poet series is why.
10 Contemporary Albums That Prove Jazz Is Thriving
Jazz didn't stop evolving when the records you know were made. Ten albums from the past fifteen years that prove it.
The 10 Blue Note Albums Every Listener Should Know
Blue Note released hundreds of albums. Forty appear on every essential list. Here are ten of those — and what to listen for in each.
How Streaming Changed Jazz (and What It Didn't)
Streaming gave jazz wider distribution than it has ever had. Jazz's audience did not grow proportionally. Something more complicated happened instead.
The Language of Jazz: A Glossary for New Listeners
Jazz has a vocabulary that insiders use casually and newcomers find baffling. Here is what the words mean — and what to listen for.
How to Listen to Free Jazz
Free jazz has a reputation for being difficult. That reputation is wrong. The music isn't hard to hear — it's hard to hear the right way.
The Five Cities That Made Jazz
Jazz didn't come from one place. It came from five — each of which heard what the previous city had built and decided to do something else with it.
Browse Other Categories