Category: Features – Archive

January 20, 2015 / Features - Archive

When Maria Schneider formed her jazz orchestra in 1992 the members earned $25 a night, and she pocketed just $15. Now people travel to New York from around the planet to hear the band, and Schneider is acclaimed as one of the world’s leading jazz composers. But she doubts she…

December 16, 2014 / Features - Archive

Richard Havers Thames & Hudson, $95 In its heyday the Blue Note jazz label was just like a great band: a fortuitous combination of disparate skills and personalities. Its founder, Alfred Lion, produced the albums, and his partner, Francis Wolff, took the moody, evocative photographs gracing covers designed by the…

December 11, 2014 / Features - Archive

Ah, the concept album: the ultimate proof that rock got too big for its boots and needed punk to spit on it until it shrank back to size. The late ’60s and early ’70s was the concept album’s heyday, with Jethro Tull trumping the rest by releasing a 44-minute piece…