Can Dave Brubeck’s Music Unite Black and Jewish Communities?
more timely“The Gates of Justice,” Brubeck’s 1969 masterwork, gets revived with his sons in tow, and reopens a conversation Americans need to have.
Jazz Genius Louis Armstrong Is Still Revealing Himself to Us
POPSWith “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” filmmaker Sacha Jenkins recasts a legacy he never really knew.
Meet the Genius Who Brought the Disco Ball to Lincoln Center
THE HOME OF HAPPY FEETShanta Thake wants to throw open the storied cultural center’s gates to new audiences. She intends to make a post-pandemic case for live performance. And she needs you to dance.
Can Allen Toussaint Blvd. Put NOLA on the Right Path?
THE STRUT OF THE STREETReplacing Robert E. Lee Boulevard with Allen Toussaint Boulevard is so disarmingly logical that the only question is, what took New Orleans so long?
How Two Jazz Titans Reinvented a Greek Tragedy
REAL MAGIC, NO GIMMICKSJazz’s greatest living composer Wayne Shorter always wanted to write an opera. Now, with collaborator Esperanza Spalding, and in the face of health problems and a pandemic, he has.
Terence Blanchard Makes Black Music Matter at the Met Opera
LONG TIME COMINGThe Grammy-winning trumpet player and composer’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is the first opera by a Black composer performed at the Metropolitan Opera in its 138-year history.
Yes, Now We Know Exactly What It Means to Miss New Orleans
YES WE CAN CANAn expanded edition of a 2005 post-Katrina benefit album speaks to our present moment of estrangement.
Wynton Marsalis: Cultural Con Jobs Began Long Before Trump
'THE EVER FONKY LOWDOWN'Amid enduring the pandemic and the loss of his father, the celebrated musician talks about cultural hustles, keeping jazz alive during quarantine, and those statues in New Orleans.
Handcuffed in a Speed Trap: The Indelible Taste of Hate
DRIVING WHILE JEWISHArrested in Starke, Florida, the author was humiliated by a bigoted cop 25 years ago. Can that experience enlighten him about far deeper issues today?
NOLA Mourns Ellis Marsalis: ‘We Were All His Children’
A PATRIARCH PASSESRemembering Ellis Marsalis, father of the Crescent City’s most famous jazz family, which includes musical sons Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason—on his own terms.