The Chicago Jazz Festival makes its annual return this summer with performances from Chicago jazz favorites and nationally renowned performers. A Labor Day tradition in the city, the free festival ...

This is FRESH AIR. Here on the show, we memorialize jazz composer Benny Golson and drummer Roy Haynes. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers a few more musicians who passed in 2024. For some of ...

Zoot Sims, left, and Al Cohn performing on stage. Al Cohn, circa 1980. Saxophonist John 'Zoot' Sims on break at WTTW Studios during a taping of the show Soundstage in Chicago, Nov. 26, 1979. Harry ...

In a career that stretched across seven decades, Mike Wofford provided exactly the right touch on piano in any and every musical setting. His death Friday morning just after midnight, silences an ...

This is FRESH AIR. There are two fat, new biographies of composers and pianists born 43 years apart. Their music transcended jazz, but recognition for their work was slow - James P. Johnson, born in ...