Recent content by Michael Karn

This is a big favorite of mine, PC and Billy Higgins are just steamrolling, it’s so swinging. Hank, Freddie and Barry Harris are icing on the cake

There are no words, other than one of the greatest musicians this country, or any other for that matter, has ever produced Sonny Rollins

Dennis Irwin on a blues

I do it a lot at up tempos, but every once in a while ill walk a medium blues, it’s definitely not a cop out

This is a huge drag, Kiyoshi was an absolutely fantastic bass player and really nice guy, and at 67 WAY too young. He was one of those guys, every time I heard him (and I was lucky to hear him a lot through the years) he always sounded good, New York good, he was so consistent and his baseline...

Hey Marshall, I’m very sorry to not have mentioned you by name in my original post, I definitely should have. Chuck was on my first gig with Ken, a big band hit at Birdland

This is beyond heartbreaking, Ken was an absolutely incredible musician, and a beautiful and very very funny guy. He died on the Jazz Cruise this past Monday, amongst his brothers and sisters, and we’ll never be the same. I’d love to hear from some of you out there who knew and/or played with...

Burno was one of a kind, as a musician and a man

I did, a couple of years ago, and I’ve used it a lot since that time so I guess all the tuning up and down and back up took that string out. In the case now is an extra set of strings and a pencil to keep the nut and bridge slots lubricated

Donald Byrd

No injury other than to my pride when the first person asked “you didn’t bring extra strings?!”

Nope, I just put one of yours on as the replacement

Well, something that had never happened to me and that I was definitely NOT expecting happened last night in Miami Beach, a long way from home I had my Jed Kriegel-ed New Standard plywood for a John Pizzarelli trio gig at the Miami Beach Jazz Festival, we hadn’t even finished the first chorus...

One of the real sounds and semi unsung heroes of New York jazz, an apex bassist who always made everyone and everything sound better

A short plug for Neal’s new trio record called Invisibility, I just got it and it’s great. The playing is fantastic of course, along with Neal there’s Chris Byars on tenor and Chris Fitzgerald’s old buddy Jason Tiemann on drums, but Neal’s writing is beautiful as well. He wrote all the tunes and...