I’ve been tweeting on Twitter for a few months now. I find that it’s the easiest and fastest way for me to communicate news and other contemporary jazz items of interest. There is a good community of jazz fans on Twitter. I keep a constant search on for ‘jazz’ and am inspired to see it [...]

Just put up a tweet on this: Rippingtons’ Modern Art cover makes Smashing Magazine’s list of 100 Obscure and Remarkable CD Covers. Congrats, Bill Mayer!

Basketball and smooth jazz great Wayman Tisdale has lost his battle with cancer. I’ll post more soon but here is the Yahoo! Sports report.

Tonight is opening night for six-performance run of the acclaimed children’s jazz puppet show The Cat Who Went to Heaven at The Harlem School of the Arts Theater in New York. It brings together contemporary jazz and the traditional Japanese art of Bunraku puppetry. Featured are notable instrumentalists Clark Terry, Kenny Barron, Frank Wess, and [...]

Try It Out Trekkers is a one-time variation of Try It Out Tuesdays in celebration of the opening of the new Star Trek movie. TIOT offers a free full MP3 of an artist. This New Cool Collective cut is from their big-band/acid jazz recording released about nine years ago called Big. The release also features [...]

Here is a list of new CDs and DVDs coming in May that I’m aware of. Click to order the CD from Amazon.com, or to download MP3s. Your purchases through these links help the site! May 5 Poogie Bell Band – Get on the Kit

Contemporary jazz guitar collaborations between label mates have resulted in some memorable recordings over the history of the genre. The first ones that pop in my head are George Benson and Earl Klugh (Collaboration on Warner Bros.) and Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton (Larry & Lee on GRP). Peak Records joins in on the tradition [...]

Shannon West recently interviewed Rippingtons main man Russ Freeman at the SmoothViews site. Check out Freeman’s thoughts on composing, painting, balancing new songs with the classics when touring, what may be his favorite saxophone performance on a Rippingtons recording, and more. Shannon also reviewed the new Rippingtons recording Modern Art, saying “these are tight, short, [...]

Try It Out Tuesdays offers a free full MP3 of an artist. Today’s track is from guitarist Jack Broad. Drumolator at The Forum recently asked if there are any fusion fans. It’s been a popular post. There are a number of jazz fans who miss that rock-jazz sound. Fusion fans, as well as fans of [...]

Never before have I watched a video and found myself nodding and saying ‘yes!’. This is a trailer for the four-part series Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense, which premieres April 15 on the Documentary Channel. I couldn’t be more excited to see contemporary jazz get the spotlight like this. The filmmakers interviewed [...]