Jack McCray: Wine, food and all that jazz

The Quentin Baxter Ensemble really cooked at the opening night of the annual BB&T Wine + Food Festival. Read More

Savannah festival celebrates music

Various genres can be heard March 18-April 3

A harbinger of spring in Savannah is that glorious city's annual music festival. Running Thursday through April 3, the Savannah Music Festival, a dynamic, comprehensive amalgamation of all types of music, will provide about as much ear candy as one can stand. Read More

Zwolle, Charleston eye jazz musicians exchange

Some of you know that I was involved in a book project released last year by the Evening Post Publishing Company. I am contributing editor for "Whisky & Jazz" by Hans Offringa, a Dutch whisky expert and hard-core jazz fan who also writes a column for the Charleston Mercury with his American wife, Becky, as the Whisky Couple. Read More

Black History Month

In this, the 51st year of Motown records and that legendary Sound of Young America, let us not forget who, by all accounts, is one of the architects of that paragon of popular music, Charleston master bassist James Jamerson. Read More

Savannah fest jazz program an eye-opener

Rob Gibson is one of the smartest guys I know. He plans and runs an incredible festival, too. Read More

All jazz is local

One of the most enjoyable books I've ever read is Robert Gottlieb's "Reading Jazz." It's a compendium of memoirs, articles, book excerpts, reviews and all other manner of printed materials published over the course of the 20th-century history of the music. Read More

Gettin' ready: The Charleston Jazz Orchestra set to swing into 2010

The Charleston Jazz Orchestra has decided to stay with what brought it to the dance in the first place. Swing. Read More

Lowcountry Aid to Africa keeps beat going

Early on, a local organization took a chance on an emerging general acceptance of jazz music and used the great American music with deep South Carolina roots to raise support for struggling people across the ocean. Read More

Sterbank offers 6th 'Hymns & Spirituals'

I was interviewing Charleston jazz trumpeter Joey Morant once and he brought up something we both believe in very strongly. Read More

Oysters, jazz and camaraderie

John Oden is a longtime Charleston musician. He's a good one. He can strum the guitar with the best of them. He gives a heckuva oyster roast, too. Read More