Open Sky Jazz

Bret Primack has had a remarkable evolution as an advocate for jazz – from nascent jazz journalist to stringer, to editor, to a short colorful time adopting a jazz community hangman’s posture as the infamous online snarkster known as The Pariah, to serious filmmaker, he has never lost his thirst or reverence for the art form. And for him that quest is at least in large pa...

Some years ago I was contracted to develop content for the National Endowment for the Arts NEA Jazz Masters program. For each of the Masters who had been selected up to that point I prepared a condensed biography to which was added discograph...

Pianist-composer Burnett Thompson, is quite the busy man – someone who describes his life as splitting time between New York, DC, and Shanghai, China. On November 7th he’ll play “American Rhapsody” in trio with bassist Alex Blake and tabla player Hamid Habib Zada as part of his ongoing Bach to Bebop concert series at intimate...

Trombonist Aaron J. Johnson teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, where he serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music, positions once occupied at Pitt by the late, great Geri Allen. who succeeded the great ...