Kevin Whitehead
Kevin Whitehead is the jazz critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Currently he reviews for The Audio Beat and Point of Departure.
Whitehead's articles on jazz and improvised music have appeared in such publications as Point of Departure, the Chicago Sun-Times, Village Voice, Down Beat, and the Dutch daily de Volkskrant.
He is the author of Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film (2020), Why Jazz: A Concise Guide (2010), New Dutch Swing (1998), and (with photographer Ton Mijs) Instant Composers Pool Orchestra: You Have to See It (2011).
His essays have appeared in numerous anthologies including Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006, Discover Jazz and Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro-Black and Other Solar Myths.
Whitehead has taught at Towson University, the University of Kansas and Goucher College. He lives near Baltimore.
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In 1965, Lewis' trio had a crossover hit with The 'In' Crowd, a jazz recording they made in a Washington, D.C. nightclub, which reached the pop charts. Lewis died Sept. 12.
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A CD set from Mosaic, full of singles and albums made between '46 and '66, confirms the variety of Armstrong's studio sides — and shows how much work went into making them sound casual.
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Coleman, who died in 2015, had a knack for writing catchy melodies in a distinctive voice. Saxophonist Miguel Zenón loves Coleman's music and put together a quartet to play some.
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Though Andra Day plays the jazz legend with conviction, The United States vs. Billie Holiday fictionalizes the particulars of Holiday's life, where the real story is dramatic enough.
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Corea, who died Feb. 9, had a strong melodic sense and a crisp, distinctive touch at the keyboard. Looking back, it's easy to hear why he was among the most beloved of modern improvising composers.
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Many jazz fans hate biopic films, but critic Kevin Whitehead likes noticing which true elements get in — or get left out — as messy lives are squeezed into stock-story formulas.
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Mark Stryker covered jazz and its people for the Detroit Free Press for decades. He uses his reporter's eye and critic's ear to chronicle the musicians from the city who made their mark on the world.
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On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.
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Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.
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There's something tender and specific about the ways elders like Frank Wess shaped their notes.