Kevin Whitehead
Kevin Whitehead is the jazz critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Currently he reviews for The Audio Beat and Point of Departure.
Whitehead's articles on jazz and improvised music have appeared in such publications as Point of Departure, the Chicago Sun-Times, Village Voice, Down Beat, and the Dutch daily de Volkskrant.
He is the author of Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film (2020), Why Jazz: A Concise Guide (2010), New Dutch Swing (1998), and (with photographer Ton Mijs) Instant Composers Pool Orchestra: You Have to See It (2011).
His essays have appeared in numerous anthologies including Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006, Discover Jazz and Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro-Black and Other Solar Myths.
Whitehead has taught at Towson University, the University of Kansas and Goucher College. He lives near Baltimore.
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Roach's album was recently named to the National Recording Registry, a roster of works deemed culturally, historically or aesthetically significant; We Insist! scores in all three categories.
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Transformations and Further Passages, a lively new album by Germany's The Clarinet Trio, revives tunes written by German jazz composers in the 1950s and '60s.
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Critic Kevin Whitehead reflects on the legacy of the musician who would have been 100 on April 22, 2022. Mingus died in 1979, leaving behind a catalog of music that reflected his outsized personality.
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Coleman's first LPs from the late 1950s are newly available. They showcase Coleman's sound before he began making the records with his own bands that made him a controversial jazz star.
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Taylor's 1973 concert at New York's Town Hall has just been released for the first time as a digital album. It's a great, early example of Taylor's mature music — dense but well-designed.
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Some trumpeters aim to blow you away with their imposing technique; Miles drew the listener in. The performer, who died March 8, specialized in genre-blurring jazz that mixed old and new sounds.
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Despite the poor sound quality, Tristano's newly unearthed Personal Recordings from 1946-1970 are fascinating. Free jazz can be rambunctious, but these musicians step and listen carefully.
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Flute player Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed all came up on Chicago's new jazz scene about 20 years ago. Now they revisit their roots on ... and then there's this.
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Earlier this year, Kevin Whitehead noted the passing of Chick Corea and Mario Pavone. Now he remembers a few more players who died in 2021, including Milford Graves, Ralph Peterson and Dave Frishberg. -
Taborn is one the most inventive and resourceful pianists in improvised music today. He has a new solo album — his first in a decade — and, like the previous one, it's a stunner.
