Ekep Nkwelle’s ‘Caged Bird’ Takes Flight
A soaraway debut album offers a road map to over a century of African American music, poetry, culture, and spirituality.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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Mr. Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for The New York Sun and other publications. The host of the radio show ‘Sing! Sing! Sing!’ on San Diego KSDS on Saturday mornings, he also is the author of 10 books. He has written more than 600 liner notes for compact discs, received 11 Grammy nominations, and appears frequently on television and in documentaries.
A soaraway debut album offers a road map to over a century of African American music, poetry, culture, and spirituality.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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The New York Pops did 007 proud at a concert presided over by the playful Lena Hall, who would make a fine Bond girl herself.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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Ol’ Blue Eyes recorded the songwriter’s ‘Wives and Lovers’ and ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You,’ but why did his reputed desire to record an entire album with Bacharach go unfulfilled?
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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The musical legacies of Mabel Mercer and Sammy Davis Jr. were honored at the New York Cabaret Convention.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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The singer’s debut at the storied Upper East Side venue honored one of its sacred rules while affirming her place in its rarefied company.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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The singular jazz and blues singer marked the start of her eighth decade at Jazz at Lincoln Center, with special guest Cyndi Lauper.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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Janet Planet and Allan Harris put the Village Vanguard’s unofficial mantra — “Nobody’s going to walk out of here humming that original you wrote five minutes ago” — to the test.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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In his final season at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis puts a characteristically inventive spin on jazz’s past.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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‘Cast Party’ may be more carefully curated now, but it still has room for a young Peruvian crooner, multiple singers named Ava, and a mandolin-and-ukulele prodigy.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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Dave Green’s picture is the greatest manifestation of the Looney Tunes characters in the last 60 years because it stays true to the cartoon canon.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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One of the few occasions people on the extremes of the left and right could get together in the same space was at a Dolly Parton concert.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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An Israeli jazz guitarist bridges the Cuban and Brazilian worlds of Afro-Latin jazz.
By WILL FRIEDWALD
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