This is FRESH AIR. Although Kevin Whitehead recently stepped down as our jazz critic, we succeeded in convincing him to still occasionally contribute to our show as a jazz historian. Today, he has ...

To some extent, the concept of glory days equates to fiction based on romanticized truth. When you talk to those who walked the walk at any seemingly important time, you learn that very quickly. Many ...

In March of 1959, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ trio and pianist Horace Silver’s quintet recorded five tunes each for Swiss Radio in Zurich. With Rollins now off the scene since 2012 and Silver ...

There’s a moment that never ceases to amaze me in a 1932 Jerome Kern song, “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star,” as played by Sonny Rollins in the late 1950s. Modern jazz, vaudeville, and operetta coalesce ...

The quantity and quality of music released in 1959 have led many to call it a watershed year for modern jazz. Even just cursory research calls up such landmark titles as John Coltrane's Giant Steps ...