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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Reed players Geof Bradfield and Ben Goldberg join formidable drummer Dana Hall on a new album that features humor, sobriety and a piece that's funky one minute and chamber music the next.
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A few years ago, pianist Renee Rosnes organized a jazz band featuring six female musicians sometimes joined by a singer. These jazz all-stars are in alignment on Artemis' self-titled new album.
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An improviser well-versed in modern jazz, Houle often works with international collaborators in all sorts of settings. His latest album features music from a half-Canadian, half-American quartet.
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Rollins recorded his first sessions in 1949, and played his last live shows in 2012. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, then we listen back to a 1994 interview with the tenor saxophonist.
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More blues singer than Broadway, the Bird helped introduce bebop to jazz — and along the way redefined jazz velocity with his scrappy sound and pithy melodic figures.
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Carney rounds up diverse musicians in a sextet that cuts across generations, stylistic preferences and social circles. Their interpersonal chemistry flows on a new album.
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Blakey led his band for almost 40 years, making many classic records with top musicians. Just Coolin', a newly unearthed 1959 recorded studio session, showcases his stylistic precision.
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The Bay Area trumpet player broke out in jazz over a decade ago. A new album by his quartet, on the tender spot of every calloused moment, shows just how pretty Akinmusire can play.
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Taylor brings hi-hat funk to his new trio's album. It's a slightly odd line-up, with no bass instrument — which opens up possibilities for different ways to kick the rhythm along.
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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.