Search results for

Here's a chance for all baseball-loving jazz fans to get into the swing of the season with a few jazz songs that take their inspiration from the boys of summer. It's America's greatest art form celebrating the Great American Pastime.

The change of season offers a chance to look ahead to fall and look back at summer simultaneously. For many, it's an especially productive month: In the world of jazz, September sessions have produced some special recordings.

As August ends, so do the carefree days of summer. School begins, recent vacations are a fond memory and the temperature begins its slow and steady descent. Don't be sad, though: As Labor Day Weekend approaches, these songs are here to bring summer to a close on a positive note.

The year's best jazz albums reach into your world rather than demanding that you reach into theirs, KPLU's Nick Francis says. Here, he picks 10 fun recordings with a contemporary attitude compliant to listeners' daily lives.

Food and drinks aren't the only ways to impress your friends at your next holiday party. NPR's Felix Contreras has some suggestions for a new holiday soundtrack. Guest host Jacki Lyden talks to Contreras about how to get your party started and bring it to a smooth, reflective end.

Studio recordings from 1959 make a strong case for that year as one of the best ever for jazz. Now, a large set of 50-year-old live recordings from the Newport Jazz Festival have been released online. WBGO's Josh Jackson and The New York Times' Ben Ratliff select some choice highlights.

Baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton has a healthy obsession with the music of Steve Lacy, who remains an enduring figure in jazz. With the recent release of Transit, his second volume of Lacy originals, Sinton selects five key Lacy performances and explains why they're important.

On the surface, there might seem to be a world of difference between jazz and bluegrass music. Jazz is predominantly urban and often deals with relatively complex structures, chords and key changes. Bluegrass is predominantly rural and, like blues, often works within fairly predictable structural boundaries. But jazz and bluegrass are more alike than they appear.

Looking back on the year in jazz, much of the focus naturally falls on young talents such as Vijay Iyer. Still, some of 2009's key records also evoked bygone jazz eras with such creativity that they might signal a new wave of New Orleans and Brazilian jazz.

As expected with any list of its nature, our rundown of the Decade's 50 Most Important Recordings has drawn both praise and criticism, particularly from diehard fans of artists and albums that didn't make the cut. As one user put it in the comments, "How dare they list X, and I see no mention of Y?!" While we did our best to be inclusive, a lot of our individual choices didn't end up on the final list. Here are just a few, chosen by the reviewers who lobbied for them.