The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2009

It can be frustrating to be a jazz lover. Even in New York, you run into culturally sophisticated people who would be embarrassed to admit their unfamiliarity with the latest Brooklyn indie rock band (as of this moment, that would be the Dirty Projectors, of course), but are perfectly comfortable confessing their ignorance about an Read More

The History of Jazz, by Darcy James Argue

Leading his interviewer up to his second-floor apartment on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, Darcy James Argue, the leader of the Secret Society, a postmodern, 18-piece, big-band jazz outfit, apologized for the mess. He’d just received a new shipment of Secret Society T-shirts.

“They are all over my apartment,” he said. Mr. Argue’s flat is Read More