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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Clark recorded nine sessions with the prestigious Blue Note label between 1957 and '61. A new set featuring his work as band leader for the label showcases his crisp, tuneful creativity.
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The tenor sax player came up in Chicago and toured in the '60s with Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Randy Weston. Jordan's forgotten album, Drink Plenty Water, mixes singers with a small ensemble.
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In 1973, composer and bass virtuoso Charles Mingus signed his last recording contract with Atlantic; he'd stay with the label till his death in 1979. A new box set collects his music from that era.
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Threadgill's autobiography, written with Brent Hayes Edwards is called Easily Slip into Another World. His album, The Other One, is a three-movement composition written for a 12-piece ensemble.
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Coleman's first LPs from the late 1950s are newly available. They showcase Coleman's sound before he began making the records with his own bands that made him a controversial jazz star.
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Corea, who died Feb. 9, had a strong melodic sense and a crisp, distinctive touch at the keyboard. Looking back, it's easy to hear why he was among the most beloved of modern improvising composers.
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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.
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Over 90-some years of movies about jazz, many films have spun a familiar lick, sometimes falling back on stock standards when inspiration fails, and sometimes knowingly quoting from older works.
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Mark Stryker covered jazz and its people for the Detroit Free Press for decades. He uses his reporter's eye and critic's ear to chronicle the musicians from the city who made their mark on the world.
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Paul Steinbeck's new book chronicles the antics, both on and off stage, of the storied jazz ensemble. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Message to Our Folks celebrates the band's success on their own terms.