Email Author Brick Wahl
The 16th annual Central Avenue Jazz Festival is our fave local jazz fest, and it happens this weekend. Saturday highlights... More >>
TALE OF THE WHALE We are writing this during Carmageddon weekend, and we planned a whole bit about being trapped on the Glendale... More >>
Since we gave baritone saxist Dale Fielder an over-the-top plus last week, we should, out of fairness to this town's three or... More >>
Let's take off at a gallop, since there's a lot of it, beginning with veteran drummer Clayton Cameron's sextet at LACMA on... More >>
It's hard to imagine a more patriotic bunch than jazz musicians. There ain't one that doesn't fly the flag from his pad every day, and come... More >>
They didn't pop out of an egg or anything, so you may not have noticed that the Spanish Harlem Orchestra won a Grammy this... More >>
We had a helluva weekend at the Playboy Jazz Festival. There was some great jazz and killer funk, and Eddie Palmieri was so freaking great he... More >>
Things have been rough at NARAS, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. You probably couldn't tell, not with their two big buildings and a brand new museum and certainly the Awards telec... More >>
The Gerald Wilson Orchestra is at Catalina on Sunday. We raved about his show there last time, but it was actually better than... More >>
Eric Dolphy is just too wild. That sound of his is just too intense for most jazz listeners, let alone anyone... More >>
Ken Poston likes his jazz Big Band big. He seems to have a dozen of them on hand at any time, tight, exciting musicians... More >>
Hope you got some bread, jazz fans. Lots of great stuff this week, but some will cost ya a little. LACMA on Friday night is always free, and... More >>
Let's start with the weird: San Francisco's Rova Saxophone Quartet are at the Blue Whale on Saturday. Formed back in the late... More >>
So last Sunday night we're writing this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. We flip on the TV and some newscaster's babbling, just beside... More >>
Don't you just hate Fridays like this? Easily half a dozen great gigs the same night and, corporeal existence being what it is, you can only be... More >>
The many, worthy benefits for victims of the cataclysm in Japan reminded us that jazz itself needs funds. We're not talking about tip jars and... More >>
We talk a lot of jazz concerts and festivals and happenings and whatever, but, when you get down to it, that’s not what we think jazz is... More >>
When you think about jazz, you just don't think about naked women. Well, drummers might, but everyone else is way too busy reading the charts.... More >>
Japan's been awful good for jazz. Not Smoke on the Water good maybe, but it's been a steady gig, a source of albums and kids who come... More >>
We still haven’t the vaguest idea how a piano works. Well, we know how it works, literally. You press a key and a little hammer plunks... More >>
You write a few hundred picks columns and you know you've blown it a few times. You raved about some upcoming show that was so bad people... More >>
The Gerald Wilson Orchestra is perhaps this town's signature big band. Wilson has that... More >>
Esperanza Spalding got the kind of publicity this past week that rarely comes to a jazz musician. A lot of it wasn't exactly... More >>
So Esperanza Spalding won the Best New Artist Grammy. And not the Jazz Grammy either, the real Grammy. The... More >>
Zach Harmon is back on the drum kit at the Foundry on Melrose (between Vista and Gardner) every weekend. That's... More >>
