Ron Netsky

Canadian pianist Marilyn Lerner has a large and colorful musical palette, with interests ranging from straight-ahead jazz to klezmer to contemporary classical music. She has shared the stage with artists as diverse as Tito Puente and Steve Lacy. A formidable composer, Lerner has won the Montreal International Jazz Festival award for best composition. When she […]

In the early 1970’s, saxophonist Dave Liebman was recruited to play in the band of John Coltrane’s former drummer, Elvin Jones. But that gig was short-lived because Liebman was soon drafted by Miles Davis. Liebman has gone on to win first place in Downbeat and Jazz Times Critics Polls, and in 2011, he received the […]

No one bridges the worlds of pop and jazz better than the Joe Policastro Trio. According to Policastro, the band plays music for listeners who are “jazz-curious.” Its repertoire couldn’t be more eclectic: Prince’s “1999,” Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” “America,” from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” the theme music from “Twin Peaks,” and more. The […]

The Buffalo Jazz Octet is large enough to be hovering on the edge of big-band territory, but the group is small enough to retain the flexibility and inventive spirit of a tight ensemble. That may be because the octet is a western New York jazz supergroup, featuring pianist Michael McNeill, bassist Brian DeJesus, John Bacon […]

As his fingers fly over the guitar frets at breakneck speed, Stephane Wrembel hardly glances down. He makes it look easy, but achieving that brilliant Django Reinhardt sound is anything but. It’s no wonder that in 2011, when director Woody Allen needed the perfect music to capture the zeitgeist of the early-20th century in his […]

Saxophonist extraordinaire Branford Marsalis may be best known for his mid-1980’s stint with Sting or his short-lived, early-1990’s tenure as bandleader on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” But, after growing up in New Orleans, the oldest son in the “first family of jazz,” Marsalis has spent most of his career playing straight-ahead, hard-bop jazz. […]

Before trumpeter extraordinaire Clay Jenkins became a professor at the Eastman School of Music, he’d paid his dues on the road with the jazz orchestras of Stan Kenton, Harry James, Buddy Rich and Count Basie. But he wasn’t finished. Just last month, Jenkins played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where he still holds […]