The deep, decades-long partnership between Los Angeles-based vocalist Ada Bird Wolfe and pianist Jamieson Trotter reaches its natural peak on their June 2026 album, Murmuration. The duo has spent years cultivating a distinct musical language characterized by sophisticated storytelling, intricate vocal lines, and a balance between classical warmth and playful jazz dissonance.

Wolfe’s path to the jazz stage is unconventional. Raised a multi-instrumentalist in Massachusetts, she earned a degree in Philosophical Psychology from the University of Chicago before relocating to California. After years away from music, she returned full time to her calling in 2010. Known for her rich, conversational contralto, Wolfe has carved out a unique niche as a brilliant lyricist, writing poetic stories to fit complex, wordless melodies by jazz giants like Miles Davis and John Coltrane (vocalese, Wolfe is a master of the idiom). Her 2018 debut album, Birdie (Self Produced), quickly earned critical acclaim.

Trotter provides the perfect musical counterweight. A piano prodigy who began playing before age five, he is a sought-after Los Angeles session musician, arranger, and musical director. His versatility allows him to move effortlessly between hardcore bebop, film scores, and high-profile Hollywood events like the Academy and Emmy Awards Governors Balls. As an accompanist, Trotter balances angular, exciting chord structures with a spacious, delicate atmosphere that gives vocalists complete freedom.

The two first connected in the late 2010s when Trotter became the musical director for Wolfe’s live sets and anchored her debut album. Recognizing a rare chemistry, they stripped away the backing band to record He & Me (Self Produced, 2020), an intimate duet album highlighting their shared love for the quirky rhythms of Thelonious Monk. When the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic lockdowns halted live performances, they established a strict weekly routine over Zoom, bouncing melodies, lyrics, and arrangements back and forth. This fertile isolation yielded 45 original songs. Twelve became the 2022 album Odd Bird (Self Produced), quickening Trotter as a co-equal songwriting partner who tailored every piano voicing to Wolfe’s smoky, improvisational lines.

A critical vehicle of this partnership is Trotter’s approach to arranging, which developed into a co-equal structural architect of Wolfe’s sound. Relying on hard-bop deconstruction and re-harmonization, he frequently flattens frantic bebop tempos to give Wolfe’s dense lyricism room to breathe. Influenced by the jagged chord voicings of Jaki Byard, Trotter avoids obvious root notes to keep the music fluid. On Miles Davis’s “ESP” (reimagined as “Mind to Mind”), his jumpy, erratic keys challenge Wolfe’s delivery, matching her conversational “talk-singing” style.

Trotter flips the emotional intent of standard covers through clever mood deconstruction. For Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” he halved the original tempo and mimicked literal bird calls on the piano, unearthing a deep, melancholy gravity. On Dizzy Gillespie’s traditionally explosive “A Night in Tunisia,” he stripped away the frantic Afro-Cuban percussion for a delicate, classical nocturne atmosphere that spotlights Wolfe’s low alto register.

This structural subversion, which drifted into original material, started dictating the emotional shifts in Wolfe’s lyrics. On “Odd Bird Bop,” Trotter contrasted dense philosophical lyrics with crystalline, jagged rhythms. For the humorous “Too Much Stuff,” he built a cautious blues arrangement punctuated by sudden, sharp instrumental bursts. Conversely, on the politically heavy “Ordinary Man,” he abandoned complex jazz theory altogether, using sparse piano keys to let the raw weight of Wolfe’s voice command the room.

Murmuration stands as the latest chapter in this evolution, built on a decade of shared stages and an intuitive musical shorthand. However, this recording differs from its predecessors. Unlike the eclectic standards of He & Me or the loose, pandemic-born reflections of Odd Bird, Murmuration is a cohesive, 12-song conceptual celebration of life modeled after the annual life cycle of birds.

Musically, the album departs from traditional acoustic jazz to explore a thrilling cross between jazz and classical genres. The tracking represents their most complex formal writing to date, alternating tightly composed, fully notated passages with wide-open spaces for pure, unscripted improvisation. By utilizing nature as an overarching metaphor, Murmuration pushes the duo past the standard singer-and-pianist dynamic, resulting in an album where the arrangements mimic the fluid, soaring movements of birds in flight.

Guitarist Steve Masakowski is a cornerstone of New Orleans modern jazz, a Blue Note recording artist, and a long-time educator at the University of New Orleans. His 2026 album, Two Worlds, serves as a celebration of his 70th birthday and a showcase for the “Masakowski Family Band” comprising himself on guitar, vocalist/daughter Sasha Masakowski, bassist/son Martin Masakowski, Drummer Brian Blade, pianist Oscar Rossignoli, and saxophonist Rex Gregory.

Writers cite the Masakowski family in the same breath as the Ellis Marsalis family, both powerhouses on the New Orleans jazz scene. Along with the patriarch are: matriarch Ulrike Antonie Sprenger, who is a classically trained German pianist who met Steve while studying at Loyola University. There is his daughter, Sasha, an acclaimed vocalist and composer, born in 1986. Her style blends jazz, pop, and electronics, and she frequently tours internationally, and son Martin, a double bassist born in 1990. Martin is versatile across traditional and avant-garde jazz. He also designs custom basses as a luthier.

During his three-decade tenure as the Coca-Cola Endowed Chair of Jazz Studies at the University of New Orleans (UNO), Masakowski mentored many jazz luminaries, that include pianist Jon Cowherd, and guitarist Ted Ludwig (as well as his entire band on this recording).

Two worlds highlights two familial lineages: that of the Masakowski family and that of Steve Masakowski’s students. Both families inform this recording. Sasha Masakowski contributed her edgy jazz-pop chops to “Origin of Sin,” while Martin Masakowski provided his composition “Las Sonrisas del Mar” with its sensuous dollop of Latin Nouveu. “Sweet Dreams” is a gentle homage to the late Ellis Marsalis. Steve Masakowski, takes Marsalis’ original compostion adding the love and respect that it, and Mr. Marsalis, deserved.

If we all get what is coming to us, than this was overdue for Steve Masakowski.

The enigma of Clarksdale, MS, a moribund Mississippi Delta town serving as the county seat of Coahoma County, is only that to the population at large unfamiliar with the Mississippi Delta Blues and the development of rock music. Each year in April, Clarksdale becomes the cultural hub of the blues during the annual Juke Joint Festival. In the early 2000s, historic downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi, was economically stagnant, with dwindling local businesses and fading opportunities for live musicians. Seeking a way to revitalize the community, Ohio transplant Roger Stolle—owner of the Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art store—partnered with local tourism director Bubba O’Keefe. Together, they envisioned a recurring event that would celebrate the region’s rich musical heritage while injecting vital tourism dollars into the local economy. In April 2004, their vision became a reality with the launch of the first Juke Joint Festival, a modest gathering featuring just fifteen blues acts.

From its inception, the festival aimed to honor the historical African American “juke joints”—the informal, community-driven bars where sharecroppers birthed the Delta blues. To bridge the gap between visiting international blues aficionados and residents, the founders adopted a unique format, billing the event as “half blues festival, half small-town fair.” Alongside raw, authentic music, they introduced quirky small-town attractions like racing pigs and herding monkeys, and said monkeys riding said pigs. This hybrid approach proved a massive success, transforming the festival into Clarksdale’s single biggest business and tourism week of the year and sparking a broader downtown economic turnaround.

The festival developed a distinct day-and-night structure that endures today. During the day on Saturday, the streets come alive with over one hundred free musical acts performing across dozens of outdoor stages. When night falls, attendees use a single wristband to hop between over twenty historic indoor venues and authentic local juke joints. Over two decades, these stages have hosted legendary Delta blues royalty like Dave “Honeyboy” Edwards, Big Jack Johnson, and T-Model Ford, while also promoting the genre’s future by showcasing hometown prodigies like Grammy winner Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

Today, the Juke Joint Festival is a globally recognized cultural phenomenon that regularly attracts upwards of 10,000 visitors each April. Drawing attendees from all fifty U.S. states and dozens of countries, the grassroots event has earned widespread critical acclaim from major international media outlets, cementing Clarksdale’s legacy as the living heart of the blues.

The heart of Clarksdale’s late-night music scene lives within a handful of legendary indoor venues that anchor the Juke Joint Festival crowd each April. Chief among them is Red’s Lounge, a dimly lit space at the corner of Sunflower Avenue and 4th Street, widely regarded as one of the last remaining authentic, old-school juke joints in America. Red’s offers an unpolished, grit-infused experience where crowds pack tightly around raw Delta blues combos playing just feet away. In stark contrast stands the Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman. Housed in a massive, repurposed early 20th-century cotton warehouse next to the Delta Blues Museum, Ground Zero pairs its spacious performance stage with a full menu of Southern soul food and walls completely covered in visitor graffiti.

The festival’s venue footprint also highlights creative urban preservation, best exemplified by The New Roxy in the historic New World District. Once an abandoned 1940s movie theater, it is being revitalized into an open-air main stage where the roof once collapsed, complete with an intimate indoor bar and lobby stage that serves as a sanctuary during rainy festival nights. Nearby on Issaquena Avenue, the Bad Apple Blues Club operates, focusing strongly on historic preservation. Managed by local musician Sean “Bad” Apple, this cozy room function as an acoustic performance classroom where visitors can sit close for intimate storytelling and one-man-band sets. Finally, the Bluesberry Café on Yazoo Avenue balances late-night grit with a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere. Famous for its legendary morning acoustic sets, it gives festival regulars a warm indoor space to recover with hot food and music played early in the day.after a long night of club-hopping.

Teeming with local color, the Bluesberry Café serves as a musical and social hub of the old downtown area. As part of the early 2000s effort to revitalize the famous area, local cultural advocates were working to transform Clarksdale, Mississippi, into a year-round live blues destination. To make this vision a reality, the town needed venues that could capture travelers passing through on Mondays after spending the weekend in larger musical hubs like Memphis or New Orleans. Filling this crucial void, Florida transplants Art “Bongo Daddy” Crivaro and Carol Crivaro (with daughter Amanda in tow) moved to the Delta to open the Bluesberry Café at 235 Yazoo Avenue. Partnering with local blues musician Sean “Bad” Apple, the Crivaros launched a Monday night live music tradition that successfully transformed an otherwise dead night into one of the most vibrant, packed time slots of the week for both international travelers and locals.

The Bluesberry Café quickly became famous for its unpretentious, homey, and deeply casual environment. Housed in a downtown storefront space adorned with vintage blues and rock posters, the interior featured highly eccentric memorabilia, including an iron lung displayed prominently in the front shop window. Unlike traditional juke joints that strictly served alcohol, the café carved out a distinct niche by pairing live music with hearty comfort food. It became locally famous for serving up plates of warm spaghetti and meatballs during evening shows and a full menu of home-style breakfast omelets during the day.

The venue’s most distinct historical contribution to the Clarksdale scene was pioneering “Blues for Breakfast” weekend acoustic sets. Open on Saturday and Sunday mornings, the café became the premier spot for late-night festival-goers to find hot coffee, a substantial meal, and a relaxed morning performance. This routine deeply intertwined the café with the legendary blues artist Watermelon Slim. After moving to Clarksdale, Slim not only regularly played the venue’s morning sets, but he also stepped in as an informal partner, helping the Crivaros with heavy lifting and washing dishes in the back between his acoustic sets.

It is the union of location and a cast of Characters (with a capital C) like Watermelon Slim (and, to be sure, the Crivaros themselves) that make this hollowed musical ground so appealing. When I am in Clarksdale for the Juke Joint Festival, I will always purchase some local music and books about the area. This year, my musical purchase was Watermelon Slim’s newest recording, on the edge but in the groove (Bloos Records, 2026). To best understand this music, one needs to become acquainted with Watermelon Slim.

Born into a prominent Boston family and raised in North Carolina, William P. Homans III—who would later earn international acclaim as Watermelon Slim—first encountered the blues through his family’s housekeeper. He attended elite schools and Middlebury College on a fencing scholarship, but his life took a radical turn when he enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. While recovering from an illness in a military hospital, he taught himself to play slide guitar upside-down and left-handed using a cheap balsa-wood instrument and a Zippo lighter. This experience sparked both his musical foundation and a fierce anti-war stance, leading him to release Merry Airbrakes (1973) alongside the Vietnam Veterans Against the War—widely cited as the only major vinyl protest album recorded by an active-duty veteran during the war.

Despite his immense intelligence, which was later verified by his membership in Mensa, Homans abandoned the music industry for nearly thirty years to pursue grueling, blue-collar work across America. He spent decades working as a long-haul truck driver, composing raw a cappella blues hollers to stay awake behind the wheel, and officially adopted his famous moniker while farming watermelons in Oklahoma. He also worked as a forklift operator, firewood salesman, collections agent, and sawmill laborer—losing part of a finger in a mill accident. Amidst this heavy labor, he went back to school to earn a master’s degree in history and became a fluent speaker of four languages.

A near-fatal heart attack in 2002 forced him to retire from truck driving and commit entirely to a late-stage music career. Fronting his band, The Workers, Watermelon Slim achieved international stardom with a raw baritone voice and a signature lap-style dobro guitar played with an industrial spark-plug socket wrench. His audio diary of hard labor and grit birthed essential tracks like “Hard Times,” which captured economic anxiety; “Scalemaster Blues,” an intense tale of a trucker bypassing highway weight stations; and “Dumpster Blues,” a reflection on his leanest years working odd jobs. His late-career surge earned him over twenty Blues Music Award nominations, including a historic twelve-nomination streak over a consecutive two-year span (2007–2008) that rivaled legends like B.B. King and Buddy Guy.

Seeking the true roots of his art form, he officially packed up his life and moved to Clarksdale on October 3, 2009. There, he fully immersed himself in the tight-knit circle of regional masters. Though his definitive musical compass, Mississippi Fred McDowell, had passed away decades prior, Slim supported his legacy by standing alongside Bonnie Raitt at the official unveiling of McDowell’s Mississippi Blues Trail marker. Slim became a close creative partner to Clarksdale native James “Super Chikan” Johnson, recording the raw acoustic album Okiesippi Blues (2011), which featured intense musical duels played entirely on single-stringed diddley-bos. He also regularly shared the stage with harmonica giant Big George Brock at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club and traded blazing riffs with Charlie Musselwhite and Jimbo Mathus.

True to his blue-collar roots, Slim balanced his international musical fame with working as a heavy-lifting laborer and dishwasher at the Bluesberry Café helping the Crivaro clan with the business between his celebrated morning acoustic sets, cementing his legacy as a true, living cornerstone of the Mississippi Delta blues scene. This introduction cannot prepare one to meet Slim. He is a wizened, humble man, easy and amiable, always up for conversation with any and everyone. Slim’s live musical performances are a cultural masterclass in rural America and the blues in particular.

While in Europe earlier this year, Slim recorded an ecclectic collection of regional music, perfectly illustrating the organic nature of the surrounding area. The opening song, “Testing 1, 2, 3” is an a cappella field holler not unlike Son House’s “Grinnin’ In Your Face.” Slim accompanies himself on harmonic (an instrument on which he is a master). It sets the tone for this personal collection of traditional and original compositions. On “Vigilante Man,” Slim performs his on his curious slide guitar, singing of a dangerous man with a dark reputation. Slm is an observer, recounting this fictional character. “Oklahoma Blues” is a song about Slim’s life in Oklahoma, played again on his slide guitar. The record’s center point is the lengthy diptych of “Smokestack Lighten” and “Two Trains Running.” It is a piece of music reminiscent of the music of his friend, Fred McDowell. Raw, authentic, and smelling of that rich delta soil, Slim’s music is a part of the continuum making up this rich and complex region.

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Ted Ludwig is an acclaimed seven-string jazz guitarist and educator originally from New Orleans, known for a style that blends soulful melody with technical precision. Since beginning his professional career in 1997, he has become a fixture in the New Orleans jazz scene and a prominent instructor.

The diverse jazz scene of his hometown and formal study heavily influenced Ludwig’s musical development under several jazz legends: Hank Mackie, a local New Orleans legend and Ludwig’s first jazz guitar teacher, whom he credits as a “guiding light” for his early development; Steve Masakowski, an influential teacher and mentor during Ludwig’s time at the University of New Orleans. Ludwig often attended Masakowski’s gigs with the group Astral Project to learn from his modern jazz approach; Ellis Marsalis Jr., under the direction of the legendary pianist, Ludwig earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the University of New Orleans Jazz Studies Program. Ludwig’s influences include Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, and Pat Martino as major inspirations whose recordings informed his sound and improvisational vocabulary.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced Ludwig to become a refugee, so he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he enjoyed lengthy residences at The After Thought and The Capital Hotel with his long-standing trio that includes Arkansas Jazz Hall-of-Fame members, bassist Joe Vick (inducted in 2014) and drummer Bryan Brown (inducted in 2018 (The Hall inducted Ludwig in 2016). Ludwig kept an ongoing presence locally with Jazz at the Joint in the Joint Theater (301 Main Street, North Little Rock, AR). In May 2025, The Joint Theater closed, and Ludwig moved Jazz at the Joint to a new venue, Act II (315 Main Street, North Little Rock, AR).

Ludwig’s recording, Essential Jazz Guitar, was a collaborative project recorded over two to three days in Nashville, Tennessee, with the Burton Avenue Music. The recordings took place at Rudy’s Jazz Room and other performance locations in Nashville and featured Ted Ludwig: seven-string guitar; Joel Frahm: tenor saxophone; Pat Coil: piano; Jacob Jezioro: upright bass; and Danny Gottlieb: drums. They made the recordings live over the course of three days, ensuring the spontaneity of the performances.

Ludwig ensures a dual “old-new” dichotomy on the recording using traditional recording and arranging methods coupled with a throughly modern tonal and harmonic soloing approach. Highlights include the thoughtful and swinging original “The Pendulum.” Among the standards is an outstanding performance of Miles Davis’ modal classic, “Milestones,” and a beautifully crafted reading of “Everything Happens to Me,” highlighting Ludwig’s superior chording. Ludwig also includes Duke Jordan’s standard, “Jeanine,” which has been a part of his set lists for years. The guitarist shares a special empathy with tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, striking sparks on "Carla Bley’s “Syndrome” and the Ludwig original, “What It Was.”

Ted Ludwig has developed a beautiful guitar tone which he achieves and sustains on his seven-string JazzCAT guitar, custom made for him by luthier Linda Manzer. He plays Thomastik-Infeld JS113 flatwound strings through a Henriksen Little Bud amplifier, a setup that enables his unique clean and thick tone.

Michael Cobb, president of The Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation (AJHF), announced the 2026 inductees to the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame on Thursday, April 30, 2026, at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center Museum of African American History, Little Rock, Arkansas. The 2026 Hall of Fame class includes:

• Randy Goodrum

• Jonathan Karrant

• David Rosen

• Marty Rosen (post humorously)

• Larry Ross

• York Wilborn Sr. (post humorously)

The AJHF will hold the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Jazz Celebration at the historic Dreamland Ballroom, 800 West 9th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas, on Monday, June 15, 2026, at 7 PM.

The name Svetlana is a Slavic feminine given name meaning “light.” That is most appropriate for our Svetlana. When reviewing her 2016 release, Night at the Speakeasy, I noted that, “The name Svetlana and the Delancey Five sounds like a Cold War cadre of marauding spies,” with me wondering when James Jesus Angleton would show up. While the singer keeps a vestige of that romantic image, she has become a fine interpreter of Tin Pan Alley and the Great American Songbook.

Svetlana has thoughtfully been releasing singles from her upcoming Live in Savannah, slated for release in the fall of 2026. In anticipation, Svetlana has released the singles: “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” and a boffo “Tea for Two.” the singer is now releasing her third single ahead of the new album, a sophisticated rendering of Neal Hefti’s “Cute.” Originally released on the 1958 Roulette recording, Basie Plays Hefti, the song is a mini-concerto for a drum kit played with brushes. Drummer Robert Boon Jr. presents quite the master’s class on the method. The singer delivers a crisp first verse that is followed by a chorus of Al Strong’s tart muted trumpet, followed by an ensemble figure with saxophonist Rahsaan Barber before winding into the coda verse; the entire aural sculpture delivered in 2:07 minutes.

Svetlana and this very special band recorded several pieces during her 2023 Fall residency at the Jazz Corner Club in Hilton Head, the singer and her band, including pianist Willerm Delisfort, bassist Kevin Smith, besides the aforementioned Boon, Strong, and Barber. recorded several songs later slated for release. The singer is quite partial to this lineup, having appeared with them at three of her five pilgrimages to Hilton Head. The singer and band gelled into a solid team, achieving that sound the singer had in her head. For the length of her residence, Svetlana drove from Hilton Head to Savannah, where she sought a recording studio.

Having been born in Kerala, India, and raised in the United States, singer Jaana Narsipur's eclectic sonic palette draws from rigorous classical training and street-level jazz immersion. She holds a bachelor's degree in Classical Voice and Music History from Northwestern University—where she first began making her mark by sitting in on the vibrant Chicago jazz scene—and later earned her Master’s in Jazz Performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. A highly respected fixture in the NYC and Hudson Valley live circuits, she has studied under avant-garde vocal virtuoso JD Walter and the legendary NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan. This considerable experience, coupled with over fifteen years spent as a dedicated music educator, shapes her as a performer of immense technical control, stylistic fluidity, and remarkable emotional depth. This is grown-up music for grownups. Generation-X grownups, that is.

On her debut recording, Better Than Anything (Self Produced, 2022) was laser-focussed on the bebop and hard bop sounds of Bob Dorough and Horace Silver. The singer delivers eight original arrangements of Dorough and Silver compositions, using a bright bit of genius. Narsipur maxes out the funk on “The Jody Grind” while installing the “hard” in hard bop. Her nods to Dorough include a lush, Lady in Satin, treatment of “But for Now” and a nosebleed swinging “Devil May Care.” An Adderal-attention span does this singer not have.

With her second studio offering, The Re-Collection, Narsipur offers listeners something far more substantial than a standard covers project. Artfully fusing a deep-seated affection for her ‘80s and ‘90s youth with sophisticated contemporary jazz sensibilities, Narsipur delivers a bold, narrative-driven reimagining of iconic 1980s British pop and art-rock gems. Rather than simply imposing a jazz filter onto the familiar hooks of Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, and Tears for Fears, Narsipur and her music director, pianist Nicki Adams, meticulously deconstruct these formative tracks. With devastatingly clever musical imaginations, the two reinvent these songs from tabula rasa, using circuitous horn arrangements (check out the opener, “Breakout”), cinematic string textures, and an intimate, storytelling vocal approach that beautifully bridges the past and present.

Narsipur recasts these songs in an inventive and thoughtful manner. Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” floats over a light Caribbean presentation well suited for the lyrics. Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years” distills into a smokey ballad with complex bones. The song “With or Without You” begins with a gentle, wordless ostinato that flows into its natural power and presence. The Re-Collection is a pleasant surprise among an ocean of vocal jazz offerings surrounding it. Elevate this artist and recording.

If improvisation is the soul shine of jazz, then jazz lost its greatest improvisor and all that is good and just will never make another one. Sonny Rollins, the legendary tenor saxophonist whose commanding tone, inexhaustible improvisational genius, and relentless pursuit of musical truth shaped the sound of modern jazz, passed away on May 25, 2026, at his home in Woodstock, New York. He was 95 years old. As the final surviving giant of the definitive post-bebop era, Rollins’ departure marks the end of an epoch, leaving behind a monumental legacy that sub-atomically altered the expressive possibilities of American music.

Born on September 7, 1930, in New York City, Rollins grew up on Sugar Hill in Harlem, surrounded by the vanguard of the nascent bebop movement. Initially picking up the alto saxophone before permanently switching to the tenor, he was performing professionally by his late teens alongside pioneers like Babs Gonzales and Bud Powell. By the early 1950s, his rich, muscular tone and thematic approach to improvisation caught the attention of the genre’s heaviest hitters, leading to historic sideman recordings with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet.

Over a prolific career spanning seven decades and over 60 albums as a leader, Rollins recorded some of the most essential documents in jazz history. Indispensable by any measure, Rollins’ releases in the 1950s defined his artistry: Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins (Prestige, 1954) features his seminal early compositions “Oleo,” “Doxy,” and “Airegin,” which quickly became foundational elements of the jazz lexicon. Saxophone Colossus (Prestige, 1956) was the saxophonist’s masterpiece as a leader. Backed by Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins, and Max Roach, this record solidified his stature with the definitive calypso-jazz fusion “St. Thomas” and his extended, brilliant improvisation on “Blue 7.”

Critics celebrate Tenor Madness (Prestige, 1956) for its historic title track, which features the only recorded studio battle between Rollins and his monumental contemporary, John Coltrane. The groundbreaking Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) featured a piano-less trio that paired his horn with the bare skeleton of a rhythm section: bass (Ray Brown) and drums (Shelly Manne). The recording showcased his radical spatial freedom and signature dry wit through jazz interpretations of classic cowboy tunes. A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957) is a live tour-de-force that captured the raw, propulsive power of his trios, quickening his reputation as the definitive improviser of his generation and beyond.

The 1958 Freedom Suite (Riverside) further expanded his vision of the saxophone trio in the presence of bebop stalwarts Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach. The widely bootlegged St. Thomas: Sonny Rollins Trio 1959 (Dragon) (legitimized on Sonny Rollins - Weaver Of Dreams: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance Records, 2024)) captured Rollins at the height of his creativity at a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, on March 2nd of that year. This recording offered an interesting contrast to Saxophone Colossus, providing Rollins the freedom to further explore his already impressive catalog.

Rollins famously wrestled with his own immense talent, routinely stepping away from the limelight at the height of his fame for intense periods of self-examination—most notably during his legendary 1959–1961 sabbatical, when he practiced for up to fifteen hours a day on the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge to avoid disturbing his neighbors. This metaphorical wood shedding led to Rollins’ most anticipated release, The Bridge (RCA Victor, 1962). His return to the recording studio following his Williamsburg Bridge retreat, displaying a matured, complex lyricism alongside guitarist Jim Hall.

But this is a decade slice from a seven decade career. But what a slice it is. Rollins never ceased his search for musical communion: practicing, studying, considering, playing. What a legacy that now belongs to us.

Conventional wisdom marks Miles Davis’ date of death as September 28, 1991. That is the date on which Davis caught his ride, but the shadow of his cultural figure is longer than that, as the trumpeter celebrates his centenary this day.

No single artist has affected their creative corner more than Davis. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane definitely may have some bragging rights, but none can match Davis’ artistic reach as the catalyst of multiple jazz movements:

• Bebop (1945—1955): A 19-year-old Davis performed the Charlie Parker Savoy Records date, November 26, 1945, when “Billie’s Bounce” and “Now’s the Time.” Critics consider this session the first “pure” bebop session. Like rock and roll and Elvis Presley, bebop ended on March 12, 1955, when Parker died.

• Birth of the Cool (1948—1950): Early recordings of the Miles Davis Nonet appearing at the Royal Roost, September 1948 hint at the coming January 21, 1949 recordings by the Nonet on January 21, 1949, when the first sides that would become Birth of the Cool (Capitol Records, 1957). After cool jazz ignited on the West Coast, did it ever end?

• Hard Bop (1954—1964): Critics and historians acknowledge the April 3, 1954 studio session by the Miles Davis Quintet, which produced the title track for the landmark album Walkin’, as the recording that established the hard bop genre. Likewise, the formation of Davis’ second great quintet, when Wayne Shorter joined Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams in September 1964, when the ensemble created post bop (see below).

• Modal Jazz (1958—?): Many music writers mark the February 4, 1958 studio recording of the title track “Milestones” (appearing on Milestones (Columbia Records, 1958)) by the Miles Davis Sextet as the first official recording of modal jazz. The masterpiece of the genre emerged as Kind of Blue (Columbia Records, 1959). Unlike previous genres like bebop or cool jazz, modal jazz never had a true "end" because its core concept—improvising over scales rather than rigid chord progressions—permanently changed how musicians think about jazz music. If pressed, instead of dying out, the dedicated modal jazz era naturally dissolved between 1965 and 1968 by fracturing into two radically different musical movements: Free Jazz and Post-Bop.

• Post Bop (1965—1968): Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet took the open-ended nature of modal jazz and combined it with the complexity of bebop to create a new subgenre called Post-Bop. Albums like E.S.P. (Columbia Records, 1965) and Miles Smiles (Columbia Records, 1967) used “time no changes”—a concept where the band kept a steady rhythm but the soloist could change the scale or harmonic center completely at will, rendering traditional, static modal jazz obsolete.

• Fusion (1969—1980): Critics view the August 1969 recording sessions for Miles Davis’s double album Bitches Brew (Columbia Records, 1969) as the true, definitive genesis of jazz-rock fusion. By trading the traditional jazz swing beat for a heavy rock-and-roll backbeat, plugging his trumpet into electronic effects pedals, and using a massive ensemble stacked with electric guitars and multiple electronic pianos, Davis single-handedly codified the genre. Unlike early jazz genres that faded into the underground, jazz-rock fusion did not experience a quiet stylistic evolution. Instead, its dominant era came to a spectacular commercial crash between 1978 and 1980, when the core innovators of the genre splintered and the rise of Punk and New Wave grabbed the throat of popular music, rejecting the long, self-indulgent, 15-minute instrumental solos that defined 1970s jazz fusion, stripping popular music back down to raw, three-minute songs.

• Free Jazz (1959—1967): Just kidding. As close as Davis came to free jazz, he did not embrace it, claiming “all screwed up inside.” That being said, Ornette Coleman began the whole kerfuffle with The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic Records, 1959) and later, Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet (Atlantic Records, 1961). Davis’ contribution was John Coltrane, who took the genre to its zenith, ending it with his death on July 17, 1967.

Get the point? May the brilliant and mercurial Miles Davis live forever in that rare ether that is music.

The English Romantic poets were a blousy, high-strung lot given to composing notable verse about what the Reverend Fr. Bernard DeBosier, in Senior English, termed “The long ago and far away.” This included a solemn reverence for ruins and relics, as evidenced by John Keat’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and Bysshe’s “Ozymandias.” So intense was this reverence for the past and its refuse, critics like Francis Jeffery chided the “Lake School” of English Romanic poets (specifically: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey) accusing them of granting a “mystical importance” to trivial objects.

Even one of their own, George Gordon, Lord Byron, in his Don Juan: Dedication (1809), playfully mocked the group’s tendency to emphasize all of nature, narrowing and diluting their efforts, claiming that

The United States has a cultural example of this exquisite brand of this same circumstance: that group of record collectors and “entrepreneurs” responsible for the blues and folk revival of the late-1950s and ‘60s. This motley group is best described in Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78 rpm Records (Scribner, 2014) and Marybeth Hamilton’s In Search of the Blues (Basic Books, 2010). What this select group worshiped were pre-World War II, ten-inch, shellac discs intended to be spun at 78 rotations per minute.

From among these early blues enthusiasts, these erstwhile modern Romantics, several would become the first blues historians, publishing often incorrect histories of blues and jazz that would haunt blues reportage for the next 60 years. While these authors were fraught with Romantic drivel and knee-jerk political mush, they all were well intentioned. They, to a writer, would call Clarksdale, Mississippi, the ground zero of this idiom we call “the blues” and its scholarship, romance and all.

Twenty-first Century Clarksdale looks like many Arkansas and Mississippi Delta towns—not unlike May 1945 Berlin. But within these beautifully shabby environs exists a spirit that percolates from the ground aurally. Music is as much a sensual reality as the smell of beer, barbeque, the August heat, and the sound of harvesting cotton. Literally and metaphorically, for the blues-smitten, Clarksdale represents a musical mecca requiring a pilgrimage. Each year in April, Clarksdale puts on the Juke Joint Festival, now in its 16th year. Each year draws a dedicated, international crowd that doubles the population of Clarksdale on the Saturday of the festival.

In the days approaching that Saturday, one may hear a Dutch piano player performing at Levon’s or an Italian slide guitar player tearing things up outside Cathead Blues Store or a Belgian chanteuse bringing her one-woman-band to the Auberge Hostel on the corner of Delta Avenue and East 2nd Street, just up the block from The Stone Pony. The Bluesberry Cafe is a must for weekend breakfast and special events. For this festival, the cafe inaugurated its back porch as a concert venue, hosting live acts both inside and outside.

Clarksdale hosts its own cast of Characters (with a capital C) who are local to the area. These include The Bluesberry Cafe proprietors, Ms. Carol and Mr. Arthur Civaro and their daughter, Amanda, along with the internationally renown Watermelon Slim, who may cook, bus tables, sing or play his singular harmonica (We will revisit Slim in the next a future article highlighting the Juke Joint festival). Then there is the Hambone Art & Music Gallery, where owner Stan Street holds court, welcoming such local talent as Guitar Frenchie, Cricket, La La, Lucious Spiller, and Deak Harp, all essential members of this wonderful blues community.

You can next experience the Juke Joint Festival in person on April 17, 2027. Do yourself a favor and come earlier that week. There will be plenty to do.

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Clarence George Carter (January 14, 1936—May 13, 2026) was a pioneering American Southern soul and blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Known for his deep, expressive baritone vocals, storytelling lyrics, and trademark full-throated laugh, Carter was a foundational figure in the classic Muscle Shoals rhythm and blues scene. Blind from birth, he transcended his disability to achieve a prolific career that spanned over six decades and included 22 studio albums.

Born into a sharecropping family in Jim Crow Montgomery, Alabama, Carter taught himself to play guitar by listening to blues icons like John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins. He attended the Alabama School for the Blind and later graduated from Alabama State University in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in music.

His professional career began in the early 1960s as part of the duo Clarence & Calvin. After a car accident injured his partner, Calvin Scott, in 1966, Carter went solo. He signed with Rick Hall’s legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, launching a massive string of late-1960s and 1970s hits on the Atlantic Records label. These hits included “Tell Daddy” (Atlantic Records, 1967): Carter’s first solo charting single peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song directly inspired Etta James’s iconic answer record, “Tell Mama” (Cadet Records, 1967) with Carter receiving writing credit for it.

The sublime “Slip Away” (Atlantic Records, 1968) cemented Carter’s agonizingly soulful cry. This cheating ballad became Carter’s definitive breakthrough, crossing over into the mainstream, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and selling over one million copies.” The salacious “Back Door Santa” (Atlantic Records, 1968): was a delightfully bawdy and funky seasonal R&B track. It became a holiday staple and earned modern immortality when its brass arrangement was sampled by Run-D.M.C. for their 1987 hip-hop classic “Christmas in Hollis.”

“Patches” (Atlantic Records, 1970), originally recorded by the Chairmen of the Board, became Carter’s biggest hit. This plaintive, story-driven treatment peaked at No. 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100, reached No. 2 in the UK, winning the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1971. The 1986 “Strokin’” (Ichiban Records) proves Carter’s lasting recorded legacy. The song is a comically explicit, talking-blues ode to physical love that became an underground phenomenon. Though banned from commercial radio, word-of-mouth promotion turned it into a massive jukebox success.

Carter played a de facto administrative role for FAME Studios. Carter had an exceptional ear for arrangement and storytelling. Because he was an educated musician, he wasn't just a singer showing up to cut a vocal. He worked closely on arrangements and frequently understood exactly how a track should flow—sometimes even pushing back on Hall’s (who was his own A&R man) initial instincts (as he famously did before recording "Patches").

Carter's impressive string of hits in the late 1960s cemented FAME Studios as the premier destination for Southern R&B. While he wasn't out scouring the South actively recruiting and signing acts on behalf of the studio, his presence and distinct sonic blueprint served as the ultimate proof-of-concept that drew other major soul and blues artists to Muscle Shoals.

Carter passed away from natural causes at a hospice facility in Atlanta, Georgia, at 90.

On that troubled hinge connecting the 1960s to the 1970s, I could tune my dad’s transistor radio into the “Mighty 1090”1 and hear Clarence Carter singing rural strife in “Patches” right after Elvis Preseley crooned of urban tragedy in “In the Ghetto” (Released within a year of one another, these songs did exactly what their composers, Dunbar and Johnson and Mac Davis, respectively, intended them to do: pull the listeners by the heartstrings all the way to Cranks in Park Plaza Mall to buy the 45 rpm singles.

Released first, Presley’s single hit the street on April 14, 1969, the same time the Montreal Expos played their first-ever home game at Parc Jarry, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7 and marking the first regular-season Major League Baseball game ever played outside the United States. In Hollywood, the 41st Academy Awards featured the first and only exact tie for Best Actress between Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) and Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter), with both receiving exactly 3,030 votes. anticipated its hosting album, From Elvis in Memphis (RCA, 1969). All of this orbited the King’s famous comeback special that aired December 3, 1968. The song helped spearhead that comeback.

Carter’s “Patches” was r” the summer of 1970, the first single from the singer’s fourth album of the same name. Both singles enjoyed commercial and critical success. For a tween boy coming of age, they offered a softer side of the music that would occupy this same pimply-faced kid for the rest of his misspent life. The Southern soul of two artists who shared more in common than they didn’t.

Little Feat’s The Last Farewell Tour is a bit misleading. The tour’s name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to their 1975 album The Last Record Album (Warner Bros., 1975). While it signifies an end to heavy touring, co-founder Bill Payne has clarified in Rolling Stone Magazine that the band will continue to record and perform in more limited capacities, such as residencies, as long as they are able.

The three LF OGs Bill Payne, Sam Clayton, and Kenny Gradney are 77, 80, and 76 years old, respectively. Fred Tackett, who has been associated with the band since its inception, joining in 1988, is 80. Slowing down is not a bad idea, but retiring altogether, is.

The latest iteration of the band comprises, Bill Payne (Keyboards, vocals); Sam Clayton (percussion, vocals); Kenny Gradney (bass); Scott Sharard (guitars, vocals) and Tony Leone (drums, vocals). The band’s most recent history has been busy. Following Rooster Rag (2012), the band entered a decade of transition and loss. Keyboardist Bill Payne joined Leftover Salmon in 2014 before moving to the Doobie Brothers in 2015, a shift that limited his availability and reduced the band’s touring schedule. During this period, members often toured as the quartet “Funky Feat.”

Health struggles also sidelined guitarist Paul Barrere, who had battled hepatitis C since 1994 and was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2015. Despite a brief 50th-anniversary tour in 2018—augmented by the Midnight Ramble Horns—Barrere passed away on October 26, 2019.

The band’s modern era began with guitarist Scott Sharrard and drummer Tony Leone joining the lineup. This iteration released the blues album Sam’s Place (2024), featuring Sam Clayton on lead vocals. In May 2025, Little Feat released Strike Up the Band, their first collection of new original material in 13 years, spearheaded by the single “Too High to Cut My Hair.”

Playing to a capacity crowd (average age north of 60) at Eureka Springs’ City Auditorium, the band could have done little more than phone the show in had it chosen to. But the band, and especially Arkansan Fred Tackett (who owned a home in the city) have had a lengthy relationship with the “Paris of the Ozarks.” Mr. Tackett and the band came to play.

In what I expected to be a single 90-minute set, the band submitted a 26-song, 2 hour juggernaut, dramatically assembled with material from the band’s entire book, 1970 through 2026.

Setlist and Song Album Origins

Set One - Electric

• “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Oh, Atlanta,” Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (Warner Bros. 1975)

• “Two Trains,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “On Your Way Down,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973) - Allen Toussaint cover

• “Honest Man,” Lowell George: Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here (Warner Bros., 1979) - Composed by Fred Tackett and Lowell George.

• “Rad Gumbo,” Representing the Mambo (Warner Bros., 1990)

• “One Love Stand,” The Last Record Album (Warner Bros., 1975)

• “Too High to Cut My Hair,” Strike Up the Band (Hot Tomato. 2025)

• “Rocket in My Pocket,” Time Loves a Hero (Warner Bros., 1977)

• “Time Loves a Hero,” Time Loves a Hero (Warner Bros., 1977)

Set Two - Acoustic

• “Fool Yourself,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Bluegrass Pines,” Strike Up the Band (Hot Tomato, 2025)

• “Church Falling Down,” Rooster Rag (Hot Tomato, 2012)

• “An Apolitical Blues / Long Distance Call,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972); Muddy Waters, “Long Distance Call,” Chess Records 1452, 1951/Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Long Distance Moan,” Paramount Records 12852, 1929.

• “Trouble,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Willin’,” Little Feat (Warner Bros., 1971) and Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Louisiana 1927,” (Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (Reprise, 1974); cover by Bill Payne

Set Three Electric: Coda

• “Lafayette Railroad,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• Spanish Moon,” Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (Warner Bros. 1975)

• “That’s Her, She’s Mine,” Representing the Mambo (Warner Bros., 1990)

• “Cold, Cold, Cold,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Dixie Chicken,” Dixie Chicken (Warner Bros., 1973)

• “Tripe Face Boogie,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Teenage Nervous Breakdown,” Sailin’ Shoes (Warner Bros., 1972)

• “Let It Roll,” Let It Roll (Warner Bros., 1988)

Highlights included the refurbished “Fat Man in the Bathtub,” “Honest Man” which Tackett co-wrote with Lowell George, and the mashup of “Apolitical Blues” and Muddy Waters’ “Long Dstance Call,” the latter sung by percussionist and Little Feat OG, Sam Clayton. Keyboardist Bill Payne ended the acoustic segment of the show with a warmly performed cover of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana, 1927). “Lafayette Railroad,” an instrumental from Dixie Chicken, was presented dense and desert dry to open the final, electric portion of the show that also included “Teenage Nervous Breakdown” and “Let It Roll,” closing the show.

The crowd was respectful and as boisterous as a group of Baby Boomers can be, and the venue, with its modest capacity, was perfect for the band to show off. Which is exactly what they did.

Using guts, grit, and guidance, along with a solid work ethic, Samantha Fish has established a name for herself in the arena of roots rock/Americana performance over the past decade. She intelligently times the release of her new music logistically to coincide with her touring, which she does all the time. Presently, Fish is touring to support her Grammy Award nominated Paper Doll (Rounder Records, 2025) and anticipating her upcoming release, Paper Doll Live (coming June 15, 2026). The tour is extensive, including domestic and international legs.

On the hallowed ground of Cain’s Ballroom, Fish kicked out the jams, opening this two songs from Paper Doll, “Can You Handle the Heat” and the title song, raising the temperature and humidity adequately for her vigilant audience to have our full attention. Next, from the same recording is the driving “I’m Done Running.” Fish made her way back into her catalog featuring songs from Chills & Fever (, 2017) (“Hello Stranger”); Kill of Be Kind (, 2017) (“Bulletproof” and the rare “Dreamgirl”); leading to her typical closer, “Black Wind Howlin’” from her 2013 recording of the same title.

Within her individual tours, Fish typically features handpicked cover songs. These songs include Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You,” Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” and most recently, Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” (which was included on her Paper Doll (Rounder Records, 2025) release. For this show, Fish burned down the house with a corrosive reading of Nina Simone’s “Either Way I Lose.” This was a fine recital in one of the most fabled venues existing.

Setlist

“Can You Handle the Heat;” Paper Doll;” “I’m Done Runnin’;” “Hello Stranger;” “Gone for Good;” “Either Way I Lose;” “Sweet Southern Sounds;” “Lose You;” “No Apology;” “Bulletproof;” “Miles to Go;” “Rusty Razor;” “Dreamgirl;” “Black Wind Howlin’.”

Musicians

Samantha Fish: vocals, guitar; Ron Johnson: bass; Jamie Douglass: drums; Mickey Finn: keyboards.

“Caught a Touch of Your Love” is the first single across the bow from vocalist Jonathan Karrant’s forthcoming album Full Circle, a personal tribute to his friendship and mentorship with jazz legend Diane Schuur.

The track features an arrangement by pianist Tamir Hendelman and includes Graham Dechter (guitar), Alex Frank (bass), Kevin Kanner (drums), Kye Palmer (trumpet), and Ricky Woodard (saxophone).

James Best, Craig Bickhardt, and Jack Keller originally composed the song, which initially appeared on Grover Washington’s Strawberry Moon (Columbia Records, 1987). Diane Schuur recorded the song on her 1987 live recording, Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra (GRP). Ray Charles had recommended the song. When preparing the repertoire for Full Circle, Karrant and Schuur heard the piece as a perfect vehicle for a playful duet.

Sailing under the flag of a “little-big-band,” Hendelman’s arrangement steers the song through a jaunty swing, allowing the two principals to let their hair down and enjoy the art of music making. Schuur sings with a sly confidence that Karrant easily meets and greets. The two singers immediately solidified their rapport, diving deep into this contemporary jazz standard. Graham Dechter’s sinewy guitar spars with Ricky Woodward’s full-throated saxophone and Kye Palmer’s tart trumpet. And the singers just sing, sing, sing.

And just for grins, here is Deedles’ 1987 big band recording:

The Calidore String Quartet’s American Tapestry is a left turn from their well received, award-winning The Complete Beethoven String Quartets (Signum, 2025). The recording remains incisively focused and contemplated with the goal of providing a program of American music drawn from all corners of the twentieth century. Founded in 2010 at the Colburn School, the quartet — violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi — has become the enfant terrible (in a good way) of the modern quartet scene. The group has clearly thrown down the creative gauntlet with an eye on the Kronos Quartet.

Released to coincide with the America 250 Anniversary celebrations, this album departs from the dense European tradition to explore a “dialogue among many voices.” The quartet eschew the usual orchestral lushness for a lean, organic, and emotive take on Barber’s Adagio and press hard into the rhythmic traditions informing the music of Wynton Marsalis from his Swinging Into the 21st series, originally released in 1999 and re-released in 2012. At the Octoroon Balls is Marsalis’ striking string quartet contribution to that set. From John Williams’s plain-spoken Lincoln theme in “With Malice Toward None” to an anxious, high-urgency Korngold finale, the whole album feels like a vivid conversation between different styles.

The Calidore String Quartet’s closer microphone placement adds a crisp definition to the quicker passages; this creates a driving, urgent energy in the finale that truly captivates.

This past Valentine’s Day, New York vocalist and bandleader Dr. Svetlana Shmulyian (hereafter, Svetlana) released a bold reconsideration of the David Mann-Bob Hilliard standard, “In the Wee Small Hours in the Morning.”

Svetlana’s next release, in anticipation of the fall 2026 release of Live in Savannah, is a swinging treatment of the 1924 Vincent Youmans-Irving Caesar song “Tea for Two.” Introduction of the song occurred in May 1924 by Phyllis Cleveland and John Barker during the Chicago pre-Broadway run of the musical No, No, Nanette.

The recording of “Tea for Two” is worth considering During Svetlana’s 2023 Fall residency at the Jazz Corner Club in Hilton Head, the singer and her band, including pianist Willerm Delisfort, drummer Robert Boon Jr., bassist Kevin Smith, saxophonist Rahsaan Barber, and trumpeter Al Strong recorded several songs later slated for release. The singer is quite partial to this lineup, having appeared with them at three of her five pilgrimages to Hilton Head. The singer and band’s synergy gelled so completely that Svetlana had to have that sound. For several days, Svetlana drove from Hilton Head to Savannah, where she sought a recording studio.

Svetlana and the band recorded eight songs and filmed an accompanying video for each. They released the first three recorded songs as the holiday collection, Snowball Swing. With that done, the singer begins the release of five singles and videos, which she calls Chapter Two of Savannah Sessions. The singer will release all five recordings between now and Svetlana’s Fall 2026 residency at Hilton Head. “Tea for Two” is her second release from these efforts.

One cannot un-experience Anita O’Day’s performance of the song at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival as captured in the film Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Raven Films, 1959). O’Day was at the height of her considerable powers, delivering this standard live. Svetlana brings the old song back to mainstream respectability with a right down the middle mainstream. The swing is strong in this performance, Svetlana’s voice bouncing with Delisfort, Barber, and Strong turning in solid, if brief, solos. Looking forward to Live in Savannah.

And then there were three…

Mick Jagger, 82; Keith Richards, 82; and Ronnie Wood, 78.

After the band released Hackney Diamonds (Polydor, 2023), I thought, “This is it.”

When drummer Charlie Watts died, August 24, 2021, I thought, “This is really it.”

Then the band announced their upcoming album, Foreign Tongues, scheduled to be released Friday, July 10, 2026. Anticipating this, the band floated two singles: the sublime “Rough and Twisted” and the-all-too-predictable “In the Stars.”

Elation — deflation. And this is decidedly not it.

The song “Rough and Twisted” delivers a beautifully organic and deranged blues sound that might date back to the release of Blue & Lonesome (Polydor, 2016). The song begins with a psychotic breakdown of a guitar riff, quickly joined by a second guitar playing single notes, and then some filthy slide guitar slashes. Mick Jagger is vibrant in his vocals and harmonica playing, all above the most inspired noise the band has made in years. If all of Foreign Tongues mirrors this depraved masterpiece, all will be well.

“In the Stars” is a solid rocker of a later Rolling Stones vintage, definitely showing the production of Andrew Watt, who blew all the dew off Hackney Diamonds, back on the present recording. This is the radio song, the one written and produced for Millennials and beyond. It is not a terrible song at all. But it is also not “Rough and Twisted.1”

Having seen Rick Springfield in the middle of 2025 at SoundStage at Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee, Springfield’s May Day 2026 appearance at the Oaklawn Events Center in Hot Springs, Arkansas, proved a time for different considerations. A woman sitting next to me asked, “Are you here as spousal support?”

In fact, I was. I have seen Mr. Springfield ten-plus times with said spouse (here in MBB1) over the past 30 years. Such persistence in concert going establishes new friendships with people you see at each show, which is a major perk. The difference between this performance and the previous ones is that my wife purchased VIP “Meet and Greet” tickets, where I could have two items autographed and a picture made with the star.

“I was temporarily qualmless and sinking2.”

Don’t believe me?

and

and

And there, in these three pictures, and signed original vinyl copy of Working Class Dog (RCA-Victor, 1981), Working Class Dog: 40th Anniversary Special Live Edition (Songvest Records, 2022), and a rare, questionably obtained, radio copy of Working Class Dog, are an additional several hundred dollars each, parlayed with our tickets and what we spent on merchandise for our candid access with the artist.

The 1960s and ‘70s, this ain’t, pilgrims. In those days, it was “Grass, gas, or a…” You get the idea.

But, on the sunny side of the street, I was happy to watch my wife and a legion of other Gen-X girls sigh and sing and swoon and ring with their teenaged idol crush. And, yes, one said “girl” sure enough had Mr. Springfield autograph her ample and exposed décolletage. Maybe this is not so unlike the 1960s and ‘70s sans all the period fringes.

“I don’t think he was as friendly as he was when we saw him in Memphis,” said MBB. “He just wasn’t as warm and fuzzy.”

I thought, “Well, I don’t know because I didn’t have VIP access in Memphis and I am only a 68-year-old appreciator of the composer of the perfect pop song and not one of his target audience.”

I suspect that Mr. Springfield needed a nap. I know I did.

This time around, Springfield hit the ground rocking, opening with “I’ll Make You Happy,” from 2001’s Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance (Gomer Records), steering through a set that he and his sharp quintet had honed to a gleaming Vegas quantum edge. Obviously having fun on the stage, Springfield captivated his grateful audience, giving them a wormhole back to 1985 when things seemed a hell of a lot simpler, even if they really wearn’t. A delicious vicarious thrill even goosed me by surprise.

Consummate performer and businessman, Springfield’s entire performance system operates at the highest efficiency. He had a floor manager who reduced the meet and greet to a sterile affair where you walk past the star twice: the first for autographs and the second for pictures. It reminded me of the aseptic love scene in Judge Dredd (Buena Vista Pictures, 1995). One really had to be impressed with its sleek stealth.

All of that being said, few shows are as predictable and thrilling as a Rick Springfield concert. The artist possesses a band book other artists envy, and a consistently robust desire to please his audience. It is 90-minutes of carefully sculpted drama that continues to bring his dedicated fans back to see him, time and time again. That is an enduring and profitable endeavor if there ever was one.

Setlist

I’ll Make You Happy; Affair of the Heart; Kristina; I’ve Done Everything for You; Venus in Overdrive; I Get Excited; Wasted; World Start Turning; Medley: Living in Oz / Bop ‘Til You Drop / Souls / Two Tickets to Paradise / Jessie’s Girl / What’s Victoria’s Secret? / Rock of Life; Love Is Alright Tonite; Roar; State of the Heart; The Voodoo House; Don’t Talk to Strangers; Love Somebody; Human Touch; Jessie’s Girl.

Musicians

Rick Springfield: vocals, guitar; George Bernhardt: guitar; Jorge Palacious: drums; Sigve "Siggy" Sjurse: bass; Tim Gross: keyboards, guitars.

Michael Cobb, president of The Arkansas Jazz Heritage Foundation (AJHF), announced song stylist Jonathan Karrant is among the 2026 inductees to the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame. Michael Cobb announced the inductees at Celebrate International Jazz Day on Thursday, April 30, 2026, at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center Museum of African American History, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Born and raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Karrant performed in concerts and events around his home state, working with Deli Smith and The Don Bailey Quartet. Since then, Karrant has called New York, California, and Las Vegas home, where he has enjoyed splendid success working in some of the finest jazz venues and performing arts centers.

Karrant continues to return to Arkansas to perform for various events and charities, including: The Arkansas Woman of the Year Gala, Art Around the World (Fort Smith Regional Arts Museum); Reynolds Cancer House, Crisis Intervention Center, and with The Arkansas Symphony. The singer maintains a biannual residence at Fort Smith’s 906 Cocktail and Cigar Lounge, where he presents his well anticipated and received Christmas Show.

Permanently based in Las Vegas, Karrant has been a leading force for jazz, contributing much to the arts and culture of the community. He is a preserver and innovator of mainstream jazz, intent on keeping one of America’s original art forms thriving.

The AJHF will hold the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Jazz Celebration at the historic Dreamland Ballroom, 800 West 9th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas, on Monday, June 15, 2026, at 7 PM.

Selected Discography

• Jonathan Karrant, featuring Jane Monheit and Houston Person - Love Dance (Virtuoso Music, 2023).

• Jonathan Karrant - Eclectic (Virtuoso Music, 2023).

• Jonathan Karrant - Christmas Wish (Virtuoso Music, 2023)

• Jonathan Karrant - My Mother’s Eyes (Virtuoso Music, 2024).

• Jonathan Karrant - Your Song (Virtuoso Music, 2025).

• Jonathan Karrant with The Joe Alterman Trio - Live in Concert (Virtuoso Music, 2025).