Rueben Wilson is a jazz musician with an uncommonly beautiful, energetic sound and elegant ideas. In his latest CD "Organ Blues," featuring Wilson on B-3, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie-drums, Grant Green, Jr.-guitar and Melvin Butler-tenor sax, Wilson plunges into an intense, high-strung "Blues for McDuff" that keeps the listener bouncing their head as the music is transformed into something altogether new, altogether his. Rueben Wilson has in reserve, a wealth of new melodic ideas and startling shift …

Thelonious Monk once said, "Jazz and freedom go hand in hand." There are many ways to approach this tradition; some combine new sounds and meaning, and some find fulfillment in opening up the past and present to the future. Still, others make their own music according to their own light. All these, in their different ways, are what keep jazz going. The band Maroon is bursting into the jazz scene with vocalist Hillary Maroon and keyboardist Benny Lackner. Like the great big band singers of th …

The music called jazz has undergone many changes in its relatively brief, but surprisingly rich history. Yet all of it, from old New Orleans to new Free Jazz, belongs to one musical family. Some people forge special links with the past, recasting aspects of it in new and personal molds. Others reach forward for new modes of expression, new combinations of music and meanings. Julian Owens threw a lifeline on a string of music, showing others how to grasp it and navigate it beyond all obstacle …

All music derives from song, the voice, being the first instrument of all, and jazz is no exception. Jazz Musicians seek their own sound, a distinctive quality, a recognizable character, a voice, with much the same meaning as that given to it by poets. So, its not surprising that Janis Siegel one of the most distinctly compelling jazz singers on the scene, with a quality that can’t be bought or borrowed, faked, or sold. Start with Carole King and Gerry Goffins’ "Go Away Little Boy." Add …

A famous trumpeter once said, "The first thing we must keep in mind about a musician is that the music he plays is a reflection of his true self." His music may not be what you, the listener, think he is, but truly, he can no more escape himself through his playing than we can escape the contingent world in which we are placed. A good example is Mike Longo; His music reflects his true character. Listening to his music tells you he is uninhibited, outgoing, gregarious, funny, and at the same …