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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Braxton is known for his brainy compositional procedures, and the quartet he led between 1985 and 1993 was his great workshop. Quartet (Willisau) 1991 Studiois a two-disc showcase of their music.
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O'Farrill is a New Yorker of Cuban, Mexican, Jewish, African-American, German and Irish descent. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says his new album with Stranger Daysreflects O'Farrill's robust heritage.
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Irabagon brings an infectious sense of fun to music-making, even when the playing is dead serious — as is the case on his "mildly subversive" new album.
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A new four-disc compilation presents recordings Armstrong made for Verve in 1957. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the album includes a wealth of alternate takes, warm-ups and rehearsal sequences.
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Critic Kevin Whitehead remembers the late musician, who was known for his animated piano recitals and group improvisations, and who sometimes used his forearm to play dense clusters on the keys.
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The Algeria-born French pianist combines serious improvising with a playful attitude on his solo recital album. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Solal pulls listeners along "like a great storyteller."
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Coltrane played his last engagements as a sideman with Davis in the spring of 1960. Recordings from those European shows have been bootlegged for years; now a few are collected in a new anthology.
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A new 2-CD set features a decades-old recording of Mingus and his quintet at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival. Citic Kevin Whitehead says the album showcases one of Mingus' most explosive bands.
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In April, the singer, songwriter and pianist will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In anticipation, two compilations of Simone's early singles have been released.
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Wilson became famous in the 1930s, playing in Benny Goodman's small groups and recording his own combo sides with a young Billie Holiday. A new collection reveals what else Wilson was up to back then.