Ricky Riccardi’s book What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years focuses on the largely unexamined later years of Armstrong’s career. Riccardi, 30, is an archivist at the Louis Armstrong House Museum and fell in love with Armstrong’s work 15 years ago. “My argument is that there is no such thing as [...]
Eleven years ago, a light bulb went off in Annie Avery’s head that prompted the first occasion of the Ladies in Red event to honor New Orleans jazz musicians. This year, another light bulb went off: for the first time, music organizations and venues that have contributed to the preservation of jazz history are being [...]
Melissa Ann Sweat is never without some sort of recorder. She performs as Lady Lazarus, and her song “Sick Child” from the recent album Mantic came to her while on a walk in the woods. “The melody just came to me,” she says. “I often have my cell or my video camera on me, and I’ll [...]
Today, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield expanded his Mayfield entertainment brand, this time to Canal Street. On a windy eighth-floor patio, he and Ted Selogie, General Manager of the J.W. Marriott Hotel, announced that they have partnered up to develop the Irvin Mayfield I Club. Expected to open in July, the I Club will be an intimate [...]
