mDecks Music, a leader in innovative music education resources, has released a groundbreaking new book series dedicated to mastering jazz standards. This comprehensive collection provides musicians ...

If there’s one genre that rivals country music for the most quintessentially American art form, it’s jazz. And, historically, the genres share a lot more common ground than you might think. One could ...

This week we celebrate the 138th birthday of Jerome Kern. Born in 1885, Kern was an important composer of musical theatre and popular music in the early 20th century. Many of Kern's songs have been ...

The term “standard” seems antithetical to something as freeform and limitless as jazz. But, time has proven that these songs are not rigid at all. The only strict parameter is the lyrics, and yet ...

THE JAZZ STANDARDS: A Guide to the Repertoire, by Ted Gioia. Oxford University Press, 527 pp., $39.95. In a tense moment at the end of Annie Dillard's memoir "Encounters With Chinese Writers," nothing ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Wynton Marsalis is a name that carries weight in both jazz and classical music. A gifted trumpeter, ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Louis Armstrong is undoubtedly one of the most influential musicians in American history. A towering figure in jazz and popular music, Armstrong’s gravelly voice, impeccable trumpet ...

The jazz drummer and educator Terri Lyne Carrington’s latest project is “New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers,” a book due Friday, and an album featuring 11 of its selections. By Ayana ...

On July 17, 1959, the famed singer behind a controversial jazz standard once condemned as a “declaration of war” died—an ironically tragic end to an internal war the singer endured in the final years ...

The Jazz Age was a time of excess, creativity, and passion that lunged jazz music into the mainstream. It produced music icons like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, whose innovative sounds advanced ...