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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Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a singer's biography, a pianist's autobiography, and a fat coffee table book.
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The Boston jazz guitarist tackles the Rite of Spring and Quartet for the End of Timeon a pair of new CDs.
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Since the 1970s, Lake has led numerous bands of his own, including an occasional big band, and an organ quartet. That organ group is one to watch.
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Hall and Haden performed as a duo at a concert in Montreal in 1990. Plans to release the album, Charlie Haden - Jim Hall,were in place before both artists passed away within the last year.
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Eight months before he died of cancer, John Coltrane played a concert at Temple University in Philadelphia that proved too much for some listeners.
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Turner's new quartet album Lathe of Heavengets its name from Ursula K. LeGuin's novel. A lot of action happens at thoughtful medium tempos, and there's beautiful dissonance in the two-horn harmonies. -
Before Ponty came to the States, he already had his concept. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the digital reissue of Sunday Walk.
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Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two albums by Thelonious Monk jazz competition winners: Melissa Aldana and Joshua Redman.
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On The Late Show, a set of previously unheard solo music from 1979, the jazz pianist employs techniques like suspenseful dropouts. He had a rare ability to sound archaic — and way ahead of his time.
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Fred Hersch pulls together jazz piano traditions that have little in common. Kevin Whitehead says the classic piano, bass and drums trio format suits Hersch best of all in a review of Floating. -
The brass players' debut album is a set of pieces by Seattle-based composer and improviser Wayne Horvitz
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Jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Horace Silver died Wednesday at age 85. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead says that Silver had been off the scene awhile, but his influence is as strong as ever.
