Like it was yesterday, I recall driving my beat-up Monte Carlo with the windows rolled…
Summer 2019
Publisher's Letter
Prelude
Les McCann and Eddie Harris Swiss Movement (Atlantic) — Call it serendipity. Pianist McCann and…
Mr. Satan had seen better days. Having suffered a stroke, he was convalescing in a…
Vocalist and composer Claudia Acuña released her fourth album, En Este Momento, a decade ago.…
Tenormore, the vibrant new album by saxophonist Scott Robinson, is the story of a beautiful…
The Big Blind, Kurt Elling’s wildly ambitious “live radio drama,” received its premiere performances March…
Songs of Freedom features moving and vibrant interpretations of classic material associated with Nina Simone,…
When Samantha Boshnack moved to Seattle from her native New York state in 2003, she…
Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake returned to Europe in the fall of 1966, the vocal-piano…
Rashied Ali is perhaps best known for his work on John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space, the…
Contempo
On the surface, Reza Khan’s “day job” as program manager for the United Nations sounds…
Blu Notes
On a cold December night at Manhattan’s Jazz Gallery, drummer Kassa Overall, pianist Jon Batiste and bassist Ameen Saleem made music that was, by turns, hard-swinging, brooding, bluesy and abstract…
Magazine Features
Judging by titles alone, it would be easy to mistake Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s recent…
Few careers have been as rich and variegated as that of 76-year-old guitarist extraordinaire George…
When Dave Liebman gigs, teaches or does business in New York City, he often relocates…
In early 2003, Moppa Elliott made a career move that, by most any jazz standard,…
Joshua Redman is going nowhere fast. It’s mid-afternoon on Valentine’s Day and the saxophonist is…
Auditions
The risk for gifted artists as prolific as pianist Matthew Shipp is that a new…
Nothing Here Belongs, a fitting name for an eclectic album, is the fourth release by…
Drummer Charles Rumback had not played with this particular quartet prior to the session that…
Cuban composers and instrumentalists are relentless in their quest to honor the past while projecting…
Inventive, daring and impeccably executed and recorded, Shamania, by New York-born Danish percussionist, drummer and…
On his composition “To Dave Treut,” from his new album, Mask, David Dominique leads his…
A rigorous experimenter, trumpeter Steph Richards has a résumé that names avant-garde jazz stalwarts Henry…
Joel Ross released his debut album, KingMaker, in May on Blue Note Records. But for…
Since 2010, the trio of drummer Tom Rainey, guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock…
Violin and strings, in general, have remained outliers in the jazz world. But they have…
Pianist Russ Lossing and drummer Paul Motian recorded together at least five times over 10…
On his latest release, Trinidadian trumpet wizard and emerging composer Etienne Charles has found a…
Now in her fourth decade of recording, guitar virtuoso Mimi Fox has ensembled with legends,…
The blues has produced countless instrumental virtuosos, but the genre has always been a singer’s…
French pianist Michel Petrucciani (1962-1999) was born a dwarf. Reaching a height of only three…
Together since 1999, the trio of Israeli pianist Anat Fort, American bassist Gary Wang and…
“I didn’t think much of it,” David Liebman said about On the Corner, the funk-driven…
You’re setting expectations high when your trio partners are tenor saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist…
It’s an understatement to call Joey DeFrancesco his generation’s pre-eminent Hammond B-3 organist. For 30…
Greg Ward’s last album, Touch My Beloved’s Thought, used Charles Mingus’ classic The Black Saint…
Coda
For decades, this 1960’s oil painting by Davis Quinn hung in the study of my…