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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A new reissue catches Montgomery's quartet on their 1965 European tour. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the compilations are elegant and complicated, and you can hear Coltrane's influence throughout.
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You might think that Sánchez's Spanish-French-Cuban-Canadian-Israeli quintet would go haywire with so many rhythmic accents in play, but critic Kevin Whitehead says the composer pulls it all together.
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Rudd started out playing dixieland before graduating to free jazz. Now he's collaborating with singer Fay Victor on his latest album. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Embracehas a "valedictory air."
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Kevin Whitehead remembers alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, pianist Geri Allen, guitarist John Abercrombie and singer Jon Hendricks. Each "helped shape jazz after the upheavals of the 1960s," he says.
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In 1952, record producer Norman Granz brought six jazz stars into the studio to back a singer from outside their circle: Hollywood song and dance man Fred Astaire.
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Critic Kevin Whitehead says Abrams, who died last week, was "steeped in jazz, but eager to take on a wider world." Abrams was a co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
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Rainey plays on Jason Stein's Lucille! as well as on his own quintet's record, Float Upstream. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the albums demonstrate the range and glory of jazz counterpoint.
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The jazz legend would have turned 100 today. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Monk's music is "universally beloved, by jazz musicians across the stylistic spectrum who might agree about little else."
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Mabern has worked as a pianist for more than half a century. Now he brings brings his confident style and sense of musical history to his latest album, To Love And Be Loved.
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Iyer studied physics and mathematics before becoming a professional musician in the 1990s. He composes music for an ensemble of interdisciplinary composers and jazz academics on his new album.