MIDDLETOWN — With less than 10 years of saxophone training under his belt, retired Middletown deputy chief of police Gregory Sneed can already boast that he has played with many of the nation’s biggest jazz musicians. He recently released his first single, his rendition of “My One and Only Love,” the jazz standard by John [...]

An email last week from the University of Missouri School of Music had me at the mere mention of an upcoming event centered on Mary Lou Williams, the late, iconic jazz pianist. To say Williams is a seminal figure in modern jazz is, well, beyond an understatement. She’s that important and remains that influential. At 4 p.m. [...]

Saxophonist Vincent Herring Battles Back From Bout with Coronavirus and Career-Threatening Side Effects with Optimistic New Album   Preaching to the Choir, Due Out April 30, 2021 via Smoke Sessions Records   Album Finds Hope in Face of Pandemics and Politics with Swinging Help from Cyrus Chestnut, Yasushi Nakamura and Johnathan Blake Herring To Perform Album [...]

AVAILABLE NOW: French Composer/Trumpeter Yohan Giaume Presents Whisper of a Shadow Opus 1, a Sonic Celebration that Traces the Musical Lineage Between Europe, Africa and America Through the Eyes of Romantic Composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk Whisper of a Shadow is a Cross Cultural Project Featuring Evan Christopher, Herlin Riley, Nicholas Payton, Roland Guerin, Aaron Diehl, and More Whisper of [...]

Lunar Octet Re-Emerges with First Album in 26 Years Ann Arbor Ensemble Blends Latin Jazz, Afrobeat, Samba and Funk on Convergence A decades-long institution in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, and also the nearby Metro Detroit area, the Lunar Octet is back with a potent collection of originals inspired by such wide-ranging influences as mambo, samba, [...]