Dorothy Mae Ashby CHESAPEAKE – Dorothy Mae Ashby, 64, of the 400 block of Harbour North Drive, departed this life May 17, 2008. Born in Chesapeake, she was the widow of Melvin Ashby. She was ...

Imagine if Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian and Jimmy Smith were barely remembered and recordings of their music were long unavailable and known only on the geekiest corners of Discogs. That is ...

A decade ago, a Dorothy Ashby (1930-1986) revival seemed unlikely; now it seems perfectly natural. Jazz in the 21st century has embraced many instruments beyond the conventional ones—such as the ...

The last dozen years or so have seen jazz enjoying a resurgence in popularity and artistic excellence. London, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York's scenes are especially thriving, and Long Island ...

With the introduction of the 33 1/3 LP in the late 1940s and very early 1950s, harpists began appearing with greater regularity on jazz albums. At first, harpists were tag-alongs on record dates—the ...

If you were to sum up the life and music of Dorothy Ashby, then it's hard to go past the phrase "triple threat". In fact, that's kind of how the harpist described herself back in the day when this ...

Every generation or so, some enterprising soul comes along determined to haul the concert harp out of the orchestra pit. Today, there's Joanna Newsom, the anti-folk singer and songwriter who just ...

Dorothy Ashby broke barriers as a Black female jazz harpist in the 1950s and 1960s and now Brandee Younger salutes the legacy that came before her. New Release: Farm, merge, grow and expand your land ...

The re-release of this admittedly straight-ahead jazz album (originally released in 1958) comes as a breath of fresh air into the sonic world. What really sets music apart from the traditional hard ...

IT MAKES SENSE that the first time I heard the exotic jazz and spiritual funk of Dorothy Ashby patchouli thickened the air. The combination of the incense smoke and the music booming from the speakers ...