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Zev Feldman: “The Jazz Detective” is haunted by the greatest ghosts of the music

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Zev Feldman’s reputation in the jazz world has spread to where he is a consulting producer for the legendary Blue Note label. Here he is with Blue Note president Don Was (left) in the label’s tape archives. All photos courtesy of Zev Feldman

. The name Monk for decades meant jazz giant Thelonious Monk. Then a Emmy-winning TV detective named Monk became the star of a popular series called Monk, claiming new first association for the name in popular culture.

And now, along comes Zev Feldman, to take the detective role back from the TV guy, and for the sake of jazz. So now Feldman is known as “The Jazz Detective.” Detective Monk’s mystical raised hands might have a counterpart in Feldman’s internal musical dowsing rod, sensing the jazz dead, who gravely whisper, “Over here lies my best undiscovered work.”

Hearing such spectral vibes over and over, the researcher-record producer has become one of the most important non-jazz musicians in the art form, responsible for an astonishing bounty of recordings that are helping reshape the legacy of jazz history.

And his musical roots are deep, if not pure, Milwaukee.

The GRAMMY-nominated independent record producer, and the Co-President of Resonance Records, is now also a consulting producer of archival and historical recordings for Blue Note Records, the quintessential jazz label. He’s been dubbed “the Indiana Jones of Jazz” in Stereophile magazine and is widely known as the “Jazz Detective.” Over the last 25 years, he has worked for PolyGram, Universal Music Group, Rhino/Warner Music Group, and Concord Music Group, among others. In 2016, he was voted “Rising Star Producer” in Down Beat Magazine’s International Critics Poll, and he was voted “Producer of the Year” in 2022.

He’s co-produced several other labels’ important historic projects, including the acclaimed Thelonious Monk discoveries Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Palo Alto.

He also co-produced the monumental 2021 release of John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle on Impulse! Records.

Amid this auspicious career in the music’s archeological byways, Feldman found his seeming destiny when he crossed paths with “my dear friend and mentor (producer) George Klabin at Resonance Records,” he says. “Since Resonance, my life was forever transformed. I was given an intriguing proposition: if I found unreleased jazz recordings, not just reissues, but newly unearthed material, George said I could produce it for release on the label. That was like putting fire on gasoline and led directly to what I’m doing now.”

Feldman with his mentor, Resonance Records president George Klabin

But Feldman’s back story shaped who he would become. He was born in Los Angeles, but his family moved to Madison shortly afterwards and Feldman’s passion for jazz goes to deep Milwaukee familial roots. His great uncle was the stellar Milwaukee tenor saxophonist Alvin “Abe” Aaron, who worked and toured with Les Brown (on all those famous USO tours with Bob Hope and in the studio), Dave Pell, Jack Teagarden, and others. Another uncle, Joe Aaron, also played reed instruments. Feldman’s cousin is longtime Milwaukee flutist Rick Aaron, now based in Florida. His Aunt Dora played guitar in an all-female jazz band in Milwaukee around ‘20s and ‘30s called The Bachelor’s Delight.

Feldman’s Aunt Dora (second from right) played guitar in the all-female jazz band Bachelor’s Delight in the 1920s and ’30s.

“Music, especially jazz, was always around and was passed down from the elders,” Feldman says. “It’s been part of our family’s language since I was a child.

“My mother and father (who were Milwaukee natives) had an awesome record collection in all genres of music. In high school I was all about classic rock from the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, the Who, but was also really digging Miles and Coltrane, and eventually the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and so much more. My most memorable live music experience in Milwaukee was seeing my great uncle Joe Aaron perform at a club when I was 18 years old and went with my great aunt, Shirley, and my grandmother. I even had a couple of Heinekens, which was very exciting.”

Feldman’s great uncle was the noted Milwaukee tenor saxophonist Joe Aaron.

 Joe Aaron’s and the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins (left)

“Growing up, my grandparents lived right behind Peaches record store in the Silver Spring shopping center. I spent so many vacations visiting their house, and countless hours in Peaches, which eventually became a Mainstream record store. Milwaukee has always been a second home for me and I’m very lucky to be able to say so,” says Feldman, who’s formulative detecting fuel may be his passion for Kopp’s hamburgers.

Talent and Chutzpah

Since becoming a jazz music host and music director at his college radio station, Feldman’s talent and chutzpah led to progress impressively in the music business, at Polygram Records in Maryland as early as age 20 as a merchandiser and marketing specialist. He later went to Rhino Records, the reissue company, and finally national director of catalog sales for the Concord Music Group.

After a period of freelancing, he met producer George Klabin of Resonance Records in 2009. “George pulled me out of the sales and marketing realm and put me on the production highway and I’m eternally grateful.”

Since his ground-breaking success at Resonance, Feldman has co-founded a similar label, Elemental Records, and is now releasing with his own “Jazz Detective” imprint. Among the other dazzling array of historical recordings Feldman has dug up over the

The Jazz Detective label logo

years for either label are no less than eight recordings by the beloved, influential pianist Bill Evans, and five by iconic guitarist Wes Montgomery, as well as recordings by Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Charles Lloyd, Eric Dolphy, Jaco Pastorius, Grant Green, Shirley Horn, Woody Shaw, The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchesatra, and Larry Young, among others. Most recently the acclaimed finds have included “The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott’s” by Charles Mingus for Resonance.

From Elemental has come the massive five-LP, three-CD set of Albert Ayler’s Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings. Jazz Detective has recently released two double-disc sets of Ahmad Jamal Emerald City Night: Live at the Penthouse, Sonny Stitt’s Live in Baltimore and Chet Baker’s Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland, which followed a superb Baker Live in Paris trio album from 1983-84. Both Baker sets give a good idea what the often-sublime trumpeter-singer sounded like when he performed between those two dates at the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery in 1981, which this writer reviewed. 1

No Bootlegs

It’s important to understand the consistent quality of Feldman’s recordings. He never settles for crudely recorded “bootlegs” no matter how great the artists. Rather, he finds tapes done on high-grade recording equipment or, as with Baker’s Live in Paris, professionally recorded for Radio France, but never released as albums. And his packaging always includes substantial critical liner notes, unpublished photos and interviews with artists, often conducted by Feldman.

“For me, it’s literally about pulling out all the stops, and bringing a story to life,” Feldman says. “I truly want to elevate the art of record making…We brought a style, sensibility and classiness to the presentation, and made it completely legal and official with all the rights holders being cleared and compensated.”

A recent Zev Feldman unearthing, a recording of trumpeter-singer Chet Baker live in Paris.

The multiple Evans and Montgomery projects have been memorable experiences for Feldman, as well as historically redefining the artists’ oeuvre.

“Getting a chance to know the families of Wes Montgomery and Bill Evans has been a blessing,” Feldman says. “We’ve done numerous projects together and have become good friends as well. It’s also been a thrill to work directly with Sonny Rollins, Charles Lloyd, and Ahmad Jamal, who just passed away recently. It’s so interesting because they have a chance to share their experiences and weigh in on all the elements that go into a project.”

Globetrotting “jazz detective” Zev Feldman relaxing in his music library.

No End in Sight

What’s on Feldman’s horizon?

“I’m working with the great Sonny Rollins on a four-LP box set, and he’s looking at everything that comes through and playing such an important role.” Upcoming there’s also unissued live recordings from Les McCann in 1966 and 1967. Feldman is especially excited to have recordings of Wes Montgomery with the Wynton Kelly Trio from the Half Note jazz club in New York City in 1965 (a collaboration which produced what Pat Metheny calls “the absolute greatest guitar album ever made,” Smokin’ at the Half-Note). 3.

Also, “George Klabin and I have been looking for a long time for unissued Art Tatum recordings, and we have a glorious three-LP and 2-CD package coming soon of three hours of unissued recordings.”

The sky is the limit? For Feldman, the deepest buried treasures are the limit. How many jazz ghosts would disagree?

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This article was originally published in slightly different form in The Shepherd Express, here:  https://shepherdexpress.com/music/music-feature/the-jazz-detective-searching-for-vintage-music/

1. My review of (and an interview feature with) Chet Baker (Aug. 7 and Aug. 12, 1981) are both in Milwaukee Jazz Gallery 1978-1984, an anthology of the venue’s press coverage and more:

2. The Ahmad Jamal Emerald City Lights sets and the Baker Blue Room set are reviewed in a separate Culture Currents blog, here:

Reviews of two notable “Jazz Detective” albums by Ahmad Jamal and Chet Baker

3. A previous 2005 release from 1965 called The Complete Live at the Half-Note (Wynton Kelly Trio with Wes Montgomery) appears to be an incomplete misnomer.

from NPR feature

REVIEW

MUSIC REVIEWS

Albert Ayler made sublime music. The world was not ready

The saxophonist’s last recorded concerts appear on ‘Revelations’

“Music is the Healing Force of the Universe” begins and ends Revelations: The Complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings. The gorgeous box set — one of many archival jazz gems recently released under the care of producer Zev Feldman — features unseen photos, extensive liner notes and commentary from Ayler’s daughter, critics, producers and musicians. But more importantly, Revelations restores two full sets performed by the tenor saxophonist’s band, just months before Ayler was found floating in New York City’s East River. The circumstances around his death remain a mystery, but listening to these concerts — recorded July 25 and 27, 1970 — there’s a sense that Ayler was a musician in transition, the primordial yawp of his saxophone sparkling anew from the music of his youth.

 

 

Is the now-closed Jazz Estate about to become a “high-end” cocktail bar? The owner is making changes.

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The bandstand at the Jazz Estate is the centerpiece if the club’s unusual layout. Courtesy Milwaukee Visitors Bureau

Jazz can be as intimate as any chamber music, or poetry reading, or any brooding songwriter softly strumming a small acoustic guitar. The performance space itself can make a huge difference.

If you wanted to literally feel a grand piano’s tickling upper registers, sharpest voicings or resounding percussive harmonics, or an upright bass’s straight-up-your-backbone thrum, or a drummer’s sparkle, dash and punchy paradiddle, the Jazz Estate may have rewarded music travelers as well as any jazz venue in America. And being that close, the improvising dynamics of jazz often kept you on the edge of a co-pilot’s seat for the swinging ascent of a combo reaching full flight.

I begin in the past tense because the uniquely famous venue stands in icy limbo, for at least January, to develop a “refreshed and expanded cocktail program that is the jewel of Milwaukee’s East side.”

This is the symbolic image accompanying Jazz Estate owner John Dye’s Facebook announcement that the revered jazz venue would close in Jaqnuary, then reopen wsome time in February as a “high-end” cocktail bar with, at some point, “limited music.” Courtesy Jazz Estate Facebook page

That’s owner John Dye’s Facebook explanation for canceling the six-days-a-week performance calendar, and he’s sticking to it.

Renowned Milwaukee native Lynne Arriale’s trio on November 20th may have provided the last glimmer of international jazz glory the Estate would host.

However, “We definitely aren’t done with live jazz.” Dye says. “We will be bringing limited live music back when the time is right, and it will be with a modified business model that is more sustainable.”

Yet it seems financially counterintuitive when he says, “We want people to feel comfortable coming by any time without the commitment of a reservation or cover charge.”

Isn’t it foremost the music they’re willing to pay for that draws people there, a model that has sustained the place for 40 years? And doesn’t Dye’s desired aesthetic of “high-end” cocktails – vs. Milwaukee’s “beer city” stereotype – cohere implicitly with the soulful sophistication of jazz, more than any other music genre?

Dye replies, “Through four decades and eight owners the space has always been, above all else, a beloved eastside bar.” That seems to minimize the reality that, in 1973, then-owner Sal Monreal made the central space into a jazz bandstand, as the venue’s name indicates. Ever since, it’s been consistently acclaimed by local and national press, especially by Down Beat magazine, as the best jazz club in Milwaukee, a strong, undeniable identity.

This artistic photograph conveys the Jazz Estate experience: live jazz by the Anthony Deutsch Trio blended with high-quality drinks and atmosphere. Courtesy foursquare.com

As to how reducing six weekly nights of varying cover charge for popular local and touring jazz acts would make for a more financially viable business, Dye says, “Drinks have always paid the bills.” As he sees it, “cover charges and ticket reservations can deter potential customers, so that is why we are moving in a more accessible direction without those added costs and logistics.” Drastically simplifying his business model, perhaps, but that also means losing substantial admission business, from the attraction of live, advertised music, for the uncertainty of casual bar traffic. As for what percentage of the door he divides between himself and musicians, or how much they are paid otherwise, he is vague: “Over the years we have paid musicians with guarantees, door deals and bar percentages. We have used various models.”

So, in the cold darkness of uncertainty, the jazz community now wonders how the Estate’s will spotlight their art form again.

Why has this place been so special? The unusual layout allows those lucky enough to share with the musicians a central small living-room size space with a single front seating row, with only a single standing-room “row” behind that one, with a narrow ledge for drinks on the north wall. The venue’s two long wings – the bar itself and a larger seating area – extend out from this Bird-like breast of a modern-jazz bastion. It’s not a perfect listening space, as the extension of the wings encourages chatter. But that acoustic layout also can help musicians focus on their intimate dynamics.

Bottom line: It’s been the most consistent home for jazz, and related music, in Milwaukee for 40 years. There’s even a Facebook page devoted to “Jazz Estate musicians.” What’s curious is that Dye is moving forward by going backwards or retreating, in effect, which he essentially admits. There’s been three phases of the Estate’s music booking policy over the years. He wants to return to the previous policy of limited music, a few nights a week.

To be sure, on the Jazz Estate website, the booking form for bands remains in place. But the prospect of jazz being seriously cut back spurs the mind to reflect backwards.

What did the late saxophone giant Joe Henderson think of this Bird’s-breast of a room when played it? What about trumpet master Tom Harrell, who struggles to manage his schizophrenia with anti-psychotic drugs but is a supremely attuned musician. What did feel in that space? Legendary bassist Eddie Gomez led a piano trio here, he a veteran of the most sublimely intimate jazz trio ever, that of Bill Evans.

Acclaimed trumpeter Tom Harrell performs at the Jazz Estate in October of 2017. Harrell is Grammy-nominated and has won multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from Down Beat magazine. Photo by Leiko Napoli

Those are only a few of the big names the Estate hosted though, for the most part, it has served the ebb and flow of Milwaukee’s jazz community. Some musicians now fear for the place’s vaunted jazz tradition. Yet they also retain hope.

Trumpeter Eric Jacobson’s opinion holds extra weight, as he explains: “I was upset to hear about the Jazz Estate not having live music, especially after I had booked music there for four years. I felt like I created some amazing nights at the Jazz Estate with incredible local and national musicians. Having worked with the Jazz Estate, I did see the difficulties to sustain a business. I trust that John Dye is doing this, so he can stay open and hopefully get back to having live music.”

Jazz singer Jerry Grillo, who has performed there numerous times over 30 years and attended hundreds of Estate shows, says, “A jazz club needs special care from a community and its musicians. The cash register needs to ring. Covid is the real culprit. Many clubs and restaurants have had to close, but the doors will not be shuttered this time. Please support The Jazz Estate when it reopens.”

Then there’s the thoughtful guitarist Steve Peplin:

“We came to play, you came to drink and listen. But it isn’t called the Booze Estate. The drinks are great…but people would still show up even if the drinks were unsophisticated. The amount of time a jazz musician has invested in the art is vast. We used to play four-hour gigs for fifty bucks because we could relax into it and do it for the music.

“The Jazz Estate has always been my very favorite jazz club in all the world. I remember when I first sat in eons ago with Berkeley Fudge. I didn’t care about New York, L.A. or Paris. I only wanted to play at the Jazz Estate. It was an intimate, extra-dimensional portal, a testing ground, a laboratory and, later, a sanctuary.

“The place is tiny, but I would not change that. It sounds great. I don’t know how many hundreds of gigs I’ve played there with so many bands and artists, but everyone was about the music. People came to listen, trusting us to fly the spaceship.

I’m not worried about the Estate. The ship is strong and will, no doubt, be back. You can’t sink her.”

Happier times at The Jazz Estate: a promotional poster for an album recorded live at the jazz club. Courtesy kevernacular.com

Finally, pianist Mark Davis – who now directs the Milwaukee Jazz Institute, a major force as a performance and education operation – says, “I first started playing there in 1985 and, over the years, played a lot of gigs with local legends like Hattush Alexander and Berkeley Fudge and visiting stars like Charles McPherson and Tom Harrell. I also heard performances there by some all-time greats like Cedar Walton and Joe Henderson. But the thing is, the music is bigger than any one place. Jazz will continue in this city even if a venue closes. Other spots will spring up.

“The jazz scene is strong in Milwaukee. We have incredible established players as well as lots of young players just starting to come on the scene. I recently made a list of venues in our area that feature jazz and came up with over 30 clubs. We also have festivals and organizations that feature performances.

“Jazz isn’t going away. The Milwaukee Jazz Institute was formed to preserve this music and pass it along for future generations to develop.”

The cover of a notable album recorded live at the Jazz Estate. Courtesy Hollistic Music Works

Several excellent recordings, one by Jacobson and saxophonist Eric Schoor with Grammy-winning Milwaukee-raised trumpeter Brian Lynch, and two by trumpeter Nate Weiss, and a luminous one by the Jamie Breiwick Quartet, will help to preserve the memory and experience of live jazz at the Estate, regardless of what will remain when the doors open again.

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This article was originally published in The Shepherd Express in a slightly different form: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/what%E2%80%99s-next-for-the-jazz-estate/

  1. The “live at the Jazz Estate” recording I know best is the marvelous music that the Jamie Breiwick Quartet recorded there. I annotated their 2013 album Spirits: Live at the Jazz Estate. My notes opening lines read:

“Open the door on the album cover and you enter the Jazz Estate, a Milwaukee club that exemplifies a venue that nurtures modern straight-ahead jazz and makes money at it.”

To what degree that last statement remains true, only owner John Dye know for sure.

Image result for Spirits by Jamie Breiwick Quartet

The original cover to “Spirits” depicts the front door of the Jazz Estate. Courtesy allmusicguide.com

Here’s the current cover of “Spirits” as redesigned by Jamie Breiwick of B-Side Graphics. Courtesy B-Side Graphics.

 

 

 

 

 

Culture Currents results for the new incarnation of the NPR jazz poll, the 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll for 2022

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Down Beat cover from Dec. 31, 1952, noting the magazine’s first critics poll and Louis  Armstrong entering the DB Hall of Fame. Pinterest

Jazz critics polls go back at least 70 years, to the start of the Down Beat magazine jazz critics poll (magazine cover pictured above), in 1952, though the DB reader’s poll began in 1949, and the magazine dates back to 1934. I contributed to that poll in the 1980s.

But here we present (not the annual Down Beat poll nor the Village Voice‘s Pazz and Jop poll) The 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll which began modeled after the whimsically-named but otherwise-serious Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll of jazz and pop (see a vintage Voice issue below from 1984), begun by esteemed music critic Robert Christgau and continued for some years in Jazz and Pop Magazine, and to the present in The Voice, the New York weekly newspaper.

This poll is a different beast than the Down Beat poll, which solicits rankings for the best specific musicians on each instrument associated with the jazz idiom. That publication has long oriented itself to musicians, with technical “workshops,” transcriptions of solos, and “Pro Shop” — short features on instruments & gear. By contrast, this poll weighs opinions on the top ten best jazz albums of the year, and in miscellaneous categories, more geared to jazz aficionados and consumers.

The Francis Davis jazz poll was launched as a Village Voice poll, by the Grammy-Award-winning jazz writer Francis Davis. He is best known as the jazz critic for The Village Voice, and a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly, and was the long-time jazz critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s the author of a number of books including The History of the Blues, Jazz and its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader, and Outcats: Jazz Composers, Instrumentalists and Singers. I contributed to The Village Voice jazz poll while at The Capital Times, in Madison, and later when it became the NPR Jazz Poll, by then the largest annual jazz poll in the world, last year compiled from “156 distinguished journalists and critics.”

Last year, the poll’s sponsorship shifted to The Arts Fuse, a curated, independent online arts magazine. Davis’s poll assistant, Tom Hull (who formerly wrote The Village Voice‘s Jazz Consumer Guide,) took over the main poll reigns this year (A link to the poll is at the bottom of this blog post).

Below are my poll choices from the list of results. You can also access my choices (and all critics choices) on the poll site two ways, but most easily by scrolling to the poll introduction page’s bottom (but just above the “methodology.”) to the link to the complete list of critics, alphabetically listed in the link.

Kevin Lynch (The Shepherd Express, Culture Currents (Vernaculars Speak))

NEW RELEASES

  1. Ethan Philion, Meditations on Mingus (Sunnyside) (See cover above)
  2. Mary LaRose, Out Here [Music of Eric Dolphy] (Little (i) Music)
  3. Marquis Hill, New Gospel Revisited (Edition)
  4. Brian Lynch and Spheres of Influence, Songbook Vol. 2: Dance the Way U Want To (Holistic MusicWorks)
  5. Harry Skoler, Living in Sound: The Music of Charles Mingus (Sunnyside)
  6. Johannes Wallmann, Precarious Towers (Shifting Paradigm)
  7. James Francies, Purest Form (Blue Note ’21)
  8. Roberto Magris, Duo & Trio: Featuring Mark Colby (JMood)
  9. Black Lives: From Generation to Generation (Jammin’ Colors)
  10. Kase + Klassik, Live at the Opera House (B Side)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

  1. Ornette Coleman, Genesis of Genius: The Contemporary Albums (1958-59, Craft)
  2. Ahmad Jamal, Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1963-1964 and 1965-1966 (Jazz Detective/Elemental)
  3. Ray Charles, Genius + Soul = Jazz (Analog Productions Originals)

VOCAL

  • Chicago Soul Jazz Collective Meets Dee Alexander, On the Way to Be Free (JMarq)

DEBUT

  • Chase Elodia, Portrait Imperfect (Biophilia)

LATIN

  • Miguel Zenón, Música De Las Américas (Miel Music)
  • The poll invited brief comments from participating critics, which might appear on the poll site in the future in some context.
  • But here’s what I wrote:
  • Hear ye, this is a year of Charles Mingus re-emerging as a godfather of modern jazz, for artistic and honorary reasons. 2022 was the great bassist-bandleader-composer’s birth centennial, and his music speaks more pointedly than ever in our turbulent times.There’s no coincidence my top album choice of the year is Ethan Philion’s brilliant and impassioned Meditations on Mingus, Here’s link to my review. https://kevernacular.com/?p=14938 . A second top-ten album, Harry Skoler’s — Living in Sound: The Music of Charles Mingus, was a warmly incantatory concerto-like setting for clarinetist virtuoso Skloer and orchestra, with a stellar lineup that included Christian McBride, Kenny Barron, Nicholas Payton, and Jonathan Blake, with arrangements by Ambrose Akinmusire and Darcy James Argue.
  • There was another worthy top-tenner, but I didn’t want this too-short list Mingus-clogged. The longtime Mingus Big Band sumptuously produced The Charles Mingus Centennial Sessions, with vocals and narrations by Charles’s son Eric Mingus. The big band also highlighted a PBS special titled Let My Children Hear Mingus: https://www.charlesmingus.com/events/pbsmingusspecial
  • The ever-amazing “jazz detective” label Resonance unearthed The Lost Album at Ronnie Scott’s, a blazing Mingus sextet date driven by the underappreciated Detroit drummer Roy Brooks.
  • More, All About Jazz offered an excellent essay and critical round-up of 10 of Mingus’s greatest albums: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/charles-mingus-an-essential-top-ten-albums-charles-mingus
  • Plus, last year, singer-songwriter-pianist Stephanie Nilles produced a powerful, provocative and fascinating album. I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag – The White Flag was its ironic title. It may not be a jazz album by many measures, but it captures much of Mingus’s loving and raging spirit. — Kevin Lynch
  • I wrote about most of these albums in various contexts with in-depth reviews of my top six choices (searchable on my blog’s search bar) and my No. album 10 choice: KASE + Klassik Live at The Opera House. Among my other category choices, I reviewed Ornette Coleman’s Genesis of Genius box set.
  • Here’s a link to my review of my top album choice Meditations on Mingus by Ethan Philion:

    A jazz giant speaks to our times on Ethan Philion’s “Meditations on Mingus”

Finally, here’s the link to the jazz poll’s first page, where you’ll find one essay by Francis Davis, two by Hull and a photo essay by Hull on “Jazz Notables We Lost in 2022”:

The 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll

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