[xrr rating=3.75/5]There’s so much to be said posthumously about Amy Winehouse that it’s hard to know where to begin. Just as with any artist that suffers from some sort of alcohol or drug addiction that dies at such a young age, there are questions about their lasting legacy. Which side of the artist will be remembered; the extremely talented individual …

[xrr rating=3.75/5]I’ve always hated the label “free jazz.” For one thing, delineating an entire subset of jazz music as “free” implies that other types of jazz lack the spirit of freedom. Listen to a Cannonball Adderley saxophone solo, a Max Roach drum fill or a Duke Ellington big band arrangement and tell me that all of these artists don’t invoke …

Nellie McKay is politely reserved about her personal life. She’s magnanimous about my home state of Pennsylvania, where she lived briefly in her teen years, and doesn’t even touch my attempt to contrast her with another equally sweet but much less political vintage-y songstress around these days. The cheeky self-deprecation that marks many of her songs comes through even her …

[xrr rating=5/5]  The career of Miles Davis has assuredly been covered and considered far too extensively for any individual new release to be described as revelatory. But since the revolutionary jazzman’s death two decades ago, his longtime label, Columbia Records, has done a fantastic job of continually offering fresh, beautifully considered reminders of why he was so special. Scholars can …