Jaxx Liberty The Soul of American Music, Live & Unfiltered

Jaxx Liberty

The Soul of American Music, Live & Unfiltered

Latest Articles

Framed and Forgotten? The Case Against Putting Jazz and Blues Behind Glass
Live Music & Venues

Framed and Forgotten? The Case Against Putting Jazz and Blues Behind Glass

Jazz and blues built their reputations on danger, defiance, and sweat—not exhibit labels and grant applications. But as museums, universities, and prestige festivals claim ownership of the legacy, something essential might be getting lost in translation. We're asking the uncomfortable question: is preservation quietly killing the thing it's trying to save?
Digging in the Crates, Dodging the Lawyers: How Producers Are Sampling Jazz and Blues in 2024
Artist Profiles

Digging in the Crates, Dodging the Lawyers: How Producers Are Sampling Jazz and Blues in 2024

From trap bangers to R&B slow burns, the DNA of jazz and blues is all over modern music—sometimes with clearance, sometimes without. Producers are mining decades-old recordings for the perfect loop, but the legal and ethical maze around sampling has never been more complicated. Here's what's really going on behind the beat.
Color Lines and Common Ground: The Integrated Bands That Dared to Play Together
Artist Profiles

Color Lines and Common Ground: The Integrated Bands That Dared to Play Together

Long before civil rights marches made headlines, a handful of fearless musicians were quietly dismantling segregation one gig at a time. From smoky Harlem ballrooms to tense Southern tour stops, integrated jazz and blues outfits put their livelihoods—and sometimes their safety—on the line just to make music together. This is the story of America's first interracial supergroups.
Billboard's Best-Kept Secret: Jazz Standards Were Pop Hits Before They Were Classics
Artist Profiles

Billboard's Best-Kept Secret: Jazz Standards Were Pop Hits Before They Were Classics

Before 'Autumn Leaves' became elevator music and 'Round Midnight' got filed under 'sophisticated listening,' these songs were competing neck-and-neck with the biggest pop records on American radio. The commercial story of jazz's golden age is way more fascinating — and way more mainstream — than most people realize.
Packed Bags, Packed Houses: How the Great Migration Turned Delta Dirt Into City Gold
Artist Profiles

Packed Bags, Packed Houses: How the Great Migration Turned Delta Dirt Into City Gold

When hundreds of thousands of Black Southerners boarded northbound trains between 1910 and 1930, they carried more than suitcases — they carried an entire musical world in their heads and hands. What happened when that raw, field-worn blues sound hit the concrete canyons of Chicago, Detroit, and New York is one of the greatest cultural collisions in American history. In a single generation, the music didn't just move — it transformed.
Their Story, Their Mic: How Jazz and Blues Artists Are Taking Over the Podcast Airwaves
Artist Profiles

Their Story, Their Mic: How Jazz and Blues Artists Are Taking Over the Podcast Airwaves

For decades, jazz and blues musicians had to wait for a journalist to call or a label to greenlight a documentary before their stories got told. That wait is over. A growing wave of artists is launching their own podcast platforms, speaking directly to fans, mentoring the next generation, and writing American music history on their own terms.
They Know Every Record and Every Story Behind It
Artist Profiles

They Know Every Record and Every Story Behind It

Behind the worn counters of America's independent record stores stand a rare breed of keeper — people who didn't just sell jazz and blues, they absorbed it. These owners have spent decades building not just collections, but relationships with the artists, the music, and the listeners who keep it all alive.
Drop the Algorithm, Drop the Needle: How Vinyl Is Giving Jazz and Blues Listeners Their Ears Back
Live Music & Venues

Drop the Algorithm, Drop the Needle: How Vinyl Is Giving Jazz and Blues Listeners Their Ears Back

Streaming promised us everything, but somewhere along the way it started deciding what we wanted before we even asked. For jazz and blues fans across the country, the turntable is becoming an act of reclamation — a way to hear music on its own terms, not an algorithm's.
Pass It Around: The Secret Networks That Turned Jazz and Blues Into America's First Open-Source Art Form
Artist Profiles

Pass It Around: The Secret Networks That Turned Jazz and Blues Into America's First Open-Source Art Form

Long before Silicon Valley dreamed up the idea of open-source collaboration, jazz and blues musicians were running their own version of it — no institution required. From Harlem rent parties to New Orleans backroom jams, these informal circles were where America's greatest musical minds freely traded techniques, melodies, and hard-won secrets. Here's what those original creative networks looked like and why their blueprint still matters today.
Back Room, Back to Basics: The Underground Jam Sessions Giving Jazz and Blues Their Soul Back
Live Music & Venues

Back Room, Back to Basics: The Underground Jam Sessions Giving Jazz and Blues Their Soul Back

Across America, a quiet revolution is happening in living rooms, warehouses, and back porches — musicians are gathering off the radar to play for each other, not for ticket sales. These cipher sessions are more than a trend; they're a deliberate act of reclaiming improvisation as something sacred, communal, and free from the transactional pressures of commercial music culture.
Wax On, Stream Off: Why Independent Record Stores Are Jazz and Blues Culture's Last Real Home
Live Music & Venues

Wax On, Stream Off: Why Independent Record Stores Are Jazz and Blues Culture's Last Real Home

In a world where algorithms decide what you hear next, a scrappy network of independent record stores across America is doing something radical — letting the music speak for itself. These shops aren't just selling vinyl; they're holding the whole culture together, one dusty sleeve at a time.
Same Circle, Different Era: How Jazz Improvisation Lit the Fuse for Hip-Hop's Freestyle Culture
Artist Profiles

Same Circle, Different Era: How Jazz Improvisation Lit the Fuse for Hip-Hop's Freestyle Culture

Before there were cyphers on street corners, there were cutting sessions in smoke-filled clubs where musicians traded phrases until somebody ran out of ideas. The DNA running through hip-hop's greatest freestyle moments traces straight back to the jazz tradition, and the artists who know both worlds will tell you it was never a coincidence.
Notes to Net Worth: The Jazz and Blues Legends Who Beat the System With Their Own Rules
Artist Profiles

Notes to Net Worth: The Jazz and Blues Legends Who Beat the System With Their Own Rules

Long before financial literacy became a buzzword, a handful of jazz and blues musicians were quietly stacking property deeds, opening clubs, and building business empires the industry never saw coming. Their stories aren't just history — they're a blueprint that still works today.
Behind the Bandleader: The Sidemen Who Quietly Shaped American Music
Artist Profiles

Behind the Bandleader: The Sidemen Who Quietly Shaped American Music

They weren't the names on the marquee, but they were absolutely the hands on the wheel. The session musicians and sidemen of jazz and blues built the sonic architecture of American music one studio take at a time — and some of them never got their due. Until now.
No Label, No Problem: How Jazz and Blues Artists Are Owning Their Hustle
Artist Profiles

No Label, No Problem: How Jazz and Blues Artists Are Owning Their Hustle

From Depression-era rent parties to Bandcamp Fridays, jazz and blues musicians have always found ways to keep the lights on without handing their music over to someone in a suit. We dig into how artists past and present built real economic independence — and what today's players can learn from all of it.
Kitchen Table Jazz: The Master-Apprentice Tradition Keeping Improvisation Alive
Artist Profiles

Kitchen Table Jazz: The Master-Apprentice Tradition Keeping Improvisation Alive

Forget the conservatory. Some of the most vital jazz and blues education happening in America right now is going down in spare bedrooms, basement studios, and living rooms where veteran musicians are passing the torch one-on-one. We went behind the scenes to find out how these informal apprenticeships are quietly shaping the next generation of American music.
Gone Too Long: The Jazz and Blues Artists Who Came Back Swinging
Artist Profiles

Gone Too Long: The Jazz and Blues Artists Who Came Back Swinging

Some musicians don't just take a break — they disappear into silence, circumstance, or self-imposed exile, only to return with something deeper and more honest than what they left behind. This is the story of those comebacks, the hard miles that shaped them, and what their return says about the stubborn soul of American music.
Old Ghosts, New Grooves: How Jazz Artists Are Mining the Blues for Tomorrow's Sound
Artist Profiles

Old Ghosts, New Grooves: How Jazz Artists Are Mining the Blues for Tomorrow's Sound

A new wave of jazz musicians is digging deep into vintage blues recordings and field tapes, pulling out raw material to build something fresh and forward-looking. It's not sampling in the hip-hop sense — it's more like a conversation across decades. And the results are genuinely stunning.
Buried in the Vault: The Lost Studio Sessions That Could Have Rewritten Jazz History
Artist Profiles

Buried in the Vault: The Lost Studio Sessions That Could Have Rewritten Jazz History

Deep inside climate-controlled storage rooms and forgotten label archives, there are tapes that nobody's heard in decades — some that nobody's heard at all. These abandoned sessions, shelved experiments, and aborted recording dates tell a story about jazz that the official canon never got to finish.
Closing Time: The Quiet Death of America's Jazz Clubs and What We're Left With
Live Music & Venues

Closing Time: The Quiet Death of America's Jazz Clubs and What We're Left With

Across America, the intimate rooms where jazz and blues were born—sweaty, loud, and gloriously alive—are shutting their doors for good. Streaming dollars don't pay the rent, and the cultural cost of losing these spaces runs deeper than any algorithm can measure. Here's what's really happening to the live jazz ecosystem, and why it matters more than you think.