So You Don't Like Jazz normally focuses on ways to turn people on to jazz, but this column focuses on five jazz songs whose impact profoundly changed modern music. In the process they also ...

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing — all you’ve got to do is stagger your timing. For decades, fans of jazz music have debated why some songs have swing — the characteristic ...

When we talk about the "Granddaddies of Jazz," Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie come to mind. Jelly Roll Morton dubiously claimed to have invented the art form thus giving himself ...

Her name became part of the music itself—whispered across decades in melodies, dedications, and liner notes. The story begins with Horace Silver, whose "Nica's Dream" opened a new era of hard bop ...

Laufey (pronounced lay-vay) grew up in Iceland as a multi-instrumentalist kid prodigy, schooled in classical as well as jazz. Now, living in L.A., she’s one of our unlikeliest as well as most ...

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Max Raabe of the Palast Orchester, which keeps pre-World War II German jazz alive for modern audiences. In the 1920s and 30s, jazz was taking off in the United States ...

Norman Brown's "Back at Ya" won the fan-voted song of the year award. By Paul Grein Christian McBride & Inside Straight were the top winners at the inaugural Jazz Music Awards, which were held ...