Kevin Whitehead
Kevin Whitehead is the jazz critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Currently he reviews for and .
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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When Jamal's trios visited Penthouse jazz club in Seattle in the '60s, they came to play. Now 92, the pianist has signed off on the release of a new series of live recordings from back in the day.
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Schulz, who died in 2000, spoke in 1990 about his iconic Peanuts comic strip. Plus, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead talks about pianist Vince Guaraldi, who created the music for A Charlie Brown Christmas.
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From the beginning, Thumbscrew has had a thing for off-kilter rhythms and shifting accents. This new album is filled with idiosyncratic tunes 鈥� music befitting of the idiosyncratic band.
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After decades in New York, Watson has returned to Kansas City. The core KC jazz values 鈥� a swinging beat, a personal style, and an earthy, bluesy sensibility 鈥� are firmly in place on this new album.
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Nobody sounds like Waldron, a fact proved by a new 2-CD recording the artist made during a 1978 solo concert. Searching in Grenoble is a good introduction to the pianist's compelling sound.
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In 1965, Lewis' trio had a crossover hit with The 'In' Crowd, a jazz recording they made in a Washington, D.C. nightclub, which reached the pop charts. Lewis died Sept. 12.
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The Funky Freqs came up playing the post-Corea jazz-rock style known as free funk 鈥� music with fewer complicated melodies and more earthy grooving. Their new album is Hymn of the Third Galaxy.
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On Valse Sinistre, Drummond's ride-cymbal beat is lively, varied and full of passing cross-rhythms 鈥� the sound of a musician fully engaged and in the habit of attentive listening.
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Each player in this trio addresses the beat in a spontaneous way, without constant chaos. A casual romp like this session makes for breezy listening.
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Garchik's album started as a socially-distanced session which was then mixed 鈥� sometimes seamlessly, sometimes brazenly. It's music for an era of frequent disruption 鈥� and prized moments of calm.