Today's totally fun Take Five list by Josh features some of the stranger instruments to pop up in jazz -- everything from bagpipes to conch shells. But a quick poll around the office revealed that ...

If you love jazz music and always wanted to play in a jazz orchestra, don’t give up your dreams and try out some of the easiest jazz instruments to learn. It is never too late to start learning. But ...

As the old saying goes, "You have to go back before you can go forward." And that means you should learn the tradition of the instrument to gain greater knowledge and bring more depth to your playing.

Picture the “default” jazz band we all imagine, then rewind history to see how that lineup was assembled by accident, technology, and American culture. We trace how brass valves, Civil War surplus, ...

The legend goes like this: In 1930, jazz drummer Lionel Hampton was performing a gig at the NBC studios. In those days, and for a long time to come, the sound that identified NBC was three notes ...

Jazz, with its roots in African American culture and its ability to constantly change, has made a wide array of styles over the years. From its origins in New Orleans to its global impact today, jazz ...

Rochester’s Jazz Street crowds got a boost with the 17th annual Musical Instrument Donation Drive, led by Rochester Education ...

Why isn't John Graas more well-known as a jazz musician? Partly because he spent his time on the West Coast in and out of studio bands, recording infrequently with jazz bands or leading his own ...

If jazz is about free-flowing expression, do the instruments have to be Western? In a cross-cultural experiment, a group of young Chinese artists musicians based in New York is testing the ...

Bass is one of the most important instruments in a jazz orchestra, being the foundation of music and the baseline of harmonies and melodies. Bass is generally considered to be a relatively easy ...